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Court Rules WHOIS Privacy Illegal For Spammers
Unequivocal writes "Spammers hiding behind a WHOIS privacy service have been found in violation of CAN-SPAM. It probably won't stop other spammers from hiding (what can?), but at least it adds another arrow in the legal quiver for skewering the bottom feeders. Quoting from the article: 'A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has determined that using WHOIS privacy on domains may be considered "material falsification" under federal law... Although the ruling does not make use of WHOIS privacy illegal, it does serve as a clear message from the court that coupling the use of privacy services with intentional spamming will likely result in a violation of the CAN-SPAM act. This is an important decision that members of the domain community should refer to prior to utilizing a privacy shield.'"
Meh, the whole article is irrelevant. Once it gets to the Supreme Court, they'll just say we're restricting spammers' freedom of speech.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
A spammer's entire business plan can be summed up a "material falsification", can't it?
Spam is ultimately an economic problem. As long as spam remains highly profitiable spamming will continue. To deal with the spam problem we need to take a multi-faceted approach that includes a variety of both economic and other attacks. Stricter punishments for spamming, punishment for ISPs that are particularly bad, better education of people who answer spam, better use of whitelists, blacklists and greylists are all techniques that can help. Every technique has problems. Hence the standard Slashdot response with the checkboxes. However, although each has flaws, together they can be very effective. In that regard, this is sort of like cancer. Cancer is a very complicated diseases. However, by careful application of multiple medical techniques (radiation, surgery and chemotherapy being big ones) we've substantially cut down on cancer deaths. Sure, cancer still kills. But many forms are far less deadly. Childhood leukemia was a death sentence 40 years ago and now has a high survival rate. We need the same sort of combined approach to spam. This won't eradicate spam. But it will reduce it to more manageable levels.
It seems kind of like DRM (in an indirect way). Anything created to stop illegal activities will not slow down the crooks and instead end up making legitimate users pay more...
Censorship is a red herring here.
Spam isn't "unpopular speech" merely because of what it says.
Spam is an abuse of a communication channel.
One more time: It's about consent, not content.
In fact, harassment is completely subjective. It's not good to put subjective words into law. If I punch you in the face and cause visible damage, that is objective. If I take something that you can prove is yours, that's objective. But what about "harassment"? Some people are completely intolerant and consider themselves "harassed" at the drop of a hat. Others are far more tolerant. Still others never feel "harassed".
Thus the concepts of 'judge' and 'jury'. All human behavior will be open to interpretation, and context is vitally important to any judicious application of law. Also, the laws use their own guidelines for what given words mean, and due to their depth these are likely far less ambiguous than dictionary definitions wind up being.
In short you're mixing up English language with legalese, and that is why you're confused.
In libertarian la-la land, there is one freedom: to do whatever the hell I want without interference. But freedom isn't that cut and dried. My right to swing my fist ends at your face. Even on my property, I don't have the right to scream at the top of my lungs at 4 in the morning, because that impacts your freedoms.
Freedom isn't a simple thing. It isn't defined by imaginary and arbitrary natural rights. It is agreed upon and upheld by civilized people. For every freedom gained, there is a corresponding freedom lost, and so it is up to the group to decide what freedoms they are willing to trade for other more important freedoms. I, for instance, am willing to trade the freedom to scream at the top of my lungs at 4am, for the freedom to get a peaceful nights sleep.
And I don't give a rat's ass what YOU think your 'natural rights' entitle you to. Come into my neighborhood and start bellowing at 4am, and you will get a visit from the police, who will force you to stop, to protect my freedom. And THAT is as it should be, amongst civilized people.
Libertarians are akin to preschoolers, in that their idea of freedom is 'yer not the boss of me!' Well, the fact is that if you want to live in civilization, you have to let other people be the boss of you. If you don't like it, there is plenty of desolate wilderness where you can go be as free as you like, by yourself. But you DO NOT get to insert yourself into other people's lives and impose on them, claiming that if they try to stop you they are limiting your freedom. No, YOU are limiting THEIR freedom, and there are more of them than of you, so what they say goes. If you don't like it, well, there's always that lovely wilderness where you can be as free as you like without imposing on others.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton