Court Finds Spamming Not Protected By Constitution

eldavojohn writes "In a split (4-3) decision, a Virginia court has upheld the verdict against the spam king making it clear that spam is not protected by the U.S. Constitution's first amendment or even its interstate commerce clause. 'Prosecutors presented evidence of 53,000 illegal e-mails Jaynes sent over three days in July 2003. But authorities believe he was responsible for spewing 10 million e-mails a day in an enterprise that grossed up to $750,000 per month. Jaynes was charged in Virginia because the e-mails went through an AOL server in Loudoun County, where America Online is based. '"

Comments

Re:You should be able to send all the spam you lik

[techno-vampire]

Do you really think that the amount of money they're paying to get that unasked-for (lack of) content into your mailbox really does anybody any good?

Yes. Sometimes there are things in the junk mail that are useful, such as ads from supermarkets. Also, people are paid money to create those ads, print them, address them and mail them. Not only that, the USPO is paid at bulk mail rates for carrying them. If it weren't for junk mail, first class mail would cost considerably more than it does. Junk mail subsidizes regular mail and helps keep costs down. The big problem with spam is that it doesn't cost the spammer anything to send, the costs are spread out among everybody receiving it and ISP fees would be lower if there weren't spam. It's not that it's junk that makes it so bad, it's the expense to the recipient.

Re:Spam is a freedom of speech issue

[EVil Lawyer]

From your post, one might think you don't know what "freedom of speech protection" really means. The protection is from the government's interference with your ability to speak freely, not with anyone else's interference. If you and your friend communicate by shouting at each other through open windows in buildings close to each other, and someone erects a building in between your and your friends', which now makes it impossible for you to communicate in the way you'd prefer, this is not a violation of the protection of freedom of speech.

Re:You should be able to send all the spam you lik

[pokerdad]

Yes. Sometimes there are things in the junk mail that are useful, such as ads from supermarkets.

Four years ago my wife and I moved into a house, having lived in an apartment before that, and discoverd that the amount of junk mail we were receiving was much much more. Within a short time I was getting so upset about it I was going to put a No Flyers sign out (Canada Post and many flyer delivery companys in Canada won't leave unadressed junk at your home if you simply put a sign saying "No Flyers") when my wife stopped me, explaining that while she disliked the quantity of crap we were receiving, there were certain flyers she had to have and as such a "No Flyers" sign was unacceptable.

I shudder to think of how many trees died so my wife could know what was on sale each week at Zellers and Walmart.

Re:Others Pay for It...

[Blkdeath]

$42.95 a month, huh? Every month? As in flat rate... like most people... who will pay the same rate every month... whether they receive one email or 100... How are you paying for that spam again???

Because it's $42.95/month instead of $32.95 you blithering idiot.

Yes, I'm using ad-hominem because throughout this entire thread all you've done thus far is piss on all logic that's been presented to you. You have no idea about the costs of running a business, no idea of how an ISP works, no idea about the demands of a real-world e-mail server with or without spam protection measures and no idea of any of the costs involved. Those costs are passed on to the END USER along with the bottom line of the recipient ISP and all ISPs in the transit stream. This is ILLEGAL, and the proof is in all other mediums; fax spam and telemarketer calls to cell phones are illegal because the RECIPIENT pays, not the sender. Do you understand that?

You say the spammers pay for bandwidth? Do you know how SMTP works? That a spammer can send a single e-mail to HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE at THEIR EXPENSE? Do you understand that the majority of all spam e-mail comes from the bandwidth of other END USERS on compromised machines? That spam is such a large black market business that there are gangs of programmers out there creating trojans and bot-nets for the express purpose of creating armies of spam bots to satisfy the demands of pieces of garbage like the one on trial at the moment?

Do yourself a favour and shut up. You're embarrassing yourself and god are you ever annoying in that whiny brat in the supermarket cereal aisle kind of way.