Only if Google chooses to crawl the page. That's the difference: The page does not automatically get fed into Google by the creator. Google goes out and requests it. Google opts-in.
But you likewise opt-in by accepting the TCP connection request. I think google is an appropriate example, because while there is no one actually opting-in, there is an automated process in place which will transfer and store the data. By putting crap on the internet, you cost google money.
If I put up a web page criticizing government officials, it does not force anyone to incur a cost.
Likewise if you send someone an email.
How do you know if the recipient will be picking up his e-mail via long-distance dial-up, receiving it on a cell phone, or by some other means that has a direct-to-recipient cost?
No one is forced to pick up his e-mail via long-distance, etc. In fact, no one is forced to pick up his e-mail at all.
And how do they decide whether to download it? They download part of it and then check the sender, subject, etc.? Sounds like downloading to me.
How they decide is irrelevant. Again go back to the google example. How does google decide whether to download someone's shitty website? They have to download part of it and then check, blah blah blah.
Because the car is my property, and you're not allowed to damage my property without my permission.
My mail server is my property, and you are not allowed to use [its] bandwidth and storage without my permission.
Well, using is different from damaging, and I have your permission, you specifically set up a server to allow people to use your bandwidth and storage! The question then becomes who are you allowing, and for what purpose. This is where I draw analogy to trespassing laws, and suggest a Do Not Email list for those who wish to clarify what permissions they are allowing. Of course the de facto standard is that anything is allowed, so we need to take a few years easing into this.
My mail server does not have AI or enforce my views and I do not sit at a monitor 24/7 hitting "accept" and "reject" buttons as SMTP connections are established.
Nor does google's webcrawler.
If you are going to say that the mail server should not accept messages from unknown senders, I'll say that your car should start itself and move out of the way if you don't want me to stencil an ad on it.
But there's a huge difference. Your computer accepts messages because you specifically set it up to do so. I didn't set up my car so that people could stencil it.
I said: If you don't want unknown people putting emails in your mailbox, don't accept connections from unknown people.
That's whitelisting: a list of senders from whom you will accept connections.
I see. Well it wasn't meant to be a good solution or anything. Email is powerful because it allows anonymous communications. I don't have a whitelist in place, but I see spam as just one of the necessary evils of allowing anonymous communications.
My current sig: Driving SUVs supports terrorism
Finally, something upon which we can agree.
Actually, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. I mean, yeah, driving SUVs contributes slightly to terrorism, but so does riding the bus. For that matter, so does writing this message.
If I put up a web page criticizing government officials, it does not force anyone to incur a cost.
Likewise if you send someone an email.
Only those people that choose to visit the page will pay to download it.
Only those people that choose to download the email will pay to download it.
It will not cost the government money.
No, but it'll cost google money.
Am I free to paint an ad onto your car?
No.
Why should the government limit my free speech like that? Why can't I stencil an ad onto the side of your car?
Because the car is my property, and you're not allowed to damage my property without my permission.
Because it would cost you money to fix, inconvenience you, and reduce the value of something you paid for?
Not just that. The key is that you have no permission.
Sounds a lot like spam e-mail to me.
Email is sent with permission. If you don't want the email, don't accept the email. You are free to do that.
Recipients pay for the vast majority of the delivery of spam through higher ISP fees.
Such indirect damages, even if truly existing (I argue they are not), should not be regulated. The ISP, if anyone, is the one suffering the damages, and therefore only the ISP should have such a claim.
First you claim that I can decide what can be sent to me, then you tell me that I can only decide who can send e-mail me.
I think you know where your decision lies. At any time you can disconnect.
By the way, I read your whitelisting suggestion to a professional acquaintance just for a sanity check. You didn't do well...
What whitelisting suggestion? I think you're confusing me with someone else.
Who do you think is paying the cost of the bandwidth, servers, storage, and administration for e-mail if it's not the recipients?
The ISPs.
Many ISPs, in fact, estimate that spam costs individual higher ISP fees by several dollars each month.
Many record companies estimate that P2P filesharing costs consumers several dollars each CD.
That's like saying that patients don't pay for higher malpractice insurance -- because it isn't a line-item on their doctor bill.
Exactly. They don't pay for it, in a legal sense. If insurance companies illegally raise malpractice insurance rates, consumers can't then sue them for it. The hospitals have to sue, because they are the ones suffering the damages.
You agree that posting a message that says "please, if you are a lawyer in Virginia, call me collect" is not an invitation to telephone soliciters to call collect.
1. Should it be legal for the telephone solicters to call collect after seeing said message? If not, why?
Sure, it should be legal for anyone to call collect, as long as your contractual arrangement with your telephone company doesn't prohibit it (and you don't have a restraining order or some other special circumstances, harassment is still illegal).
2. Suppose the message said "call my cell phone." Would publishing that number give the telephone soliciters an invitation and legal right to call it?
Well, I'm not going to say whether it would give them a legal right, since I'm not a lawyer. But I can say that it shouldn't give them a legal right. They should ahve that right to begin with, as long as their contractual arrangement with their phone company doesn't prohibit it.
3. What if it said "call my toll free number", would that be an "open invitation" to telephone soliciters to call that number?
If you said it to a telephone soliciter, of course it would.
4. How is an "unrestricted email account" an invitation to spammers while an unrestricted cell phone number or unrestricted toll-free number is not an invitation to telephone soliciters?
It's not an invitation. What I'm saying is that no invitation is required.
As to your comment about a government-mandated "no trespassing" sign for e-mail, how would it work?
The easiest way would be a DNE (do not email) list, similar to the do not call lists that some states have.
Suppose I posted one. Would that mean that no one could e-mail me? Or would it apply only to commercial solicitations?
Due to the commerce clause, it could only apply to commercial emails. Presumably congress would make that only unsolicited commercial emails. And of course it would have to be only for willful infringement, at least for the first few years to give businesses time to adjust.
I honestly think that the public "no trespassing" signs for e-mail would solve the problem as long as there was a stiff criminal penalty for ignoring said signs.
Criminal penalties would definately have to be restricted to willful infringement. And even then, I'm not sure I'd want that. Maybe for a second or more offense.
But anything that relies on the general public having to identify, track down, and sue the spammers is destined for failure -- unless there is a guaranteed minimum judgement that makes such lawsuit profitable.
Even then it would still discourage most people, since John Doe suits generally can not be entered into in small claims court. That's why I feel that technical solutions are the most likely to succeed. And it seems that legislation is likely to discourage technical solutions. So if I had my choice I'd want a strong statement from the government that email is completely unrestricted, and that states must not get involved.
The law exists to protect exployers from over working their employees. So why should a person making a high salary not have that protection?
Because they don't need or want it.
Personally I'd vote for the hourly limit to be 35 hours before overtime kicked in. Then maybe there wouldn't be so many unemployed people and people would get more time off (and less money of couse).
Nah, they'd just lower people's base salaries. The only ways to get people to actually cut back their hours would be taxation and actual limits.
That's like saying that being mugged is one of the prices of living in a free society.
No, it's nothing like that.
Am I free to paint an ad onto your car?
No.
Am I free to call you collect at 2:00AM to tell you about my MLM scheme?
You should be.
Am I free to fax ads to your fax machine (no, it's specifically illegal for the same reason that spam should be).
Actually there's a huge difference in degree. But in any case, you should be allowed to do so.
It's not nonsense at all. If I'm paying for the delivery, it's only fair that I get to decide what can be sent to me.
Well, first of all, you're not paying for the delivery. You're paying for part of the delivery.
Secondly, you do get to decide what can be sent to you. If you don't want unknown people putting emails in your mailbox, don't accept connections from unknown people.
That's like saying it's OK for the government to prosecute people for criticising government officials over the internet, as long as it's not illegal for them to criticise them through the mail.
First, you are mistaking commercial speech and non-commercial speech.
You're not allowed to restrict commercial speech based on content either. If you'd prefer, it's like saying it's OK for the government to prosecute people for reporting government criticism over their commercial internet site, as long as it's not illegal for them to criticise them through their commercial mailing list.
Secondly, the taxpayers are the ones paying for the government official's e-mail. Very different and therefore a flawed analogy.
Huh? Who said anything about the government official's e-mail. I'm talking about a law saying you can't criticise government officials, to each other.
It's more like saying that a telephone soliciter can't call cell phones and toll-free numbers (where the recipients pays for the calls) but can call normal telephones.
But most recipients don't pay for email. At least not any more than they pay for local telephone service. Your analogy would work if the law only targetted people who pay a fee for every email they receive, or who pay based on how much bandwidth they receive. And then I would be forced to criticise the telephone law as well as the online one, which I have no problem doing. I don't agree with that law either.
I'm willing to pay the cost to receive job and interview offers, not spam.
That's great, but unfornately, not everyone has the same threshold as you. That's why I have no problem with a DNE (do not email) list, but I do have a problem with the government deciding what is proper speech, and what is not.
The former is implied when I post the resumé.
I'd say the latter is equally implied.
. Heck, I might even state it outright. There's no way that any "reasonable person" could view my resumé online and think "this guy must want me to tell him about herbal Viagra."
OK, but what about "this guy must want me to tell him about my recruitment service," or "this guy must want me to tell him how to improve his resumé?"
It's like the trespassing laws that most states including my own have. The government set up a standard about how to post no trespassing signs. If someone trespasses and you don't have a sign, you can only sue for actual, not punitive, damages.
If you want to sue spammers for the $0.0000001 they actually cost you, fine.
Suppose I post a message online that says "please, if you are a lawyer in Virginia, call me collect." I don't see that as an open invitation for random people who see the message to call me to tell me about breast enlargers, free credit reports, refinancing my mortgage, and how to become an Internet millionaire. Do you?
Well, personally I see the mere fact that you have an unrestricted email account as that open invitation. But to answer your question, no, I don't. But the resume case is an example of implied solicitation, not direct solicitation.
Kind of an ugly choice: Make your contact information less accessible to potential employers or be prepared for a deluge of spam.
It's one of the prices of living in a free society.
Do you really want a judge deciding that "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this job" is OK but "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this penis enlargement" isn't?
Yes. Without question.
Oh well, I don't.
It's not the speech that is being restrained, just the delivery method.
That's nonsense. You're allowing some types of speech to use that delivery method, but you're not allowing others.
If those same advertisers wanted to use my postal mailing address to send me ads via the USPS, then I'd have no legitimate complaint.
That's like saying it's OK for the government to prosecute people for criticising government officials over the internet, as long as it's not illegal for them to criticise them through the mail.
They would be paying the cost to deliver the ads to me. It would cost me nothing.
But if the cost is your complaint then you have to make illegal the messages offering to hire you along with the ones that want to sell you something.
Or better yet, just charge people to send you email, if that's what you want.
That won't work unless you specifically make your resumé "confidential."
Then the only way to stop spam is to make your resumé "confidential."
Do you really want a judge deciding that "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this job" is OK but "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this penis enlargement" isn't? What about "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this recruitment service," or "this resumé writing service?" Seems to me like a prior restraint on speech based on content.
The "false headers" laws have different problems. As long as they restrict the law to willful infringement attached to commercial speech, I guess I could see it as legitimate though. Otherwise I would argue that there's no mens rea, since historically e-mail does not have such a restriction, and/or that the law exceeds congressional power under the commerce clause.
The Supreme Court has made clear that individuals may preserve a threshold of privacy. ''Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit,'' wrote Chief Justice Warren Burger in a 1970 decision. ''We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another.''
Hmm. NBC does this to me all the time (sends unwanted commercials into my home).
How far would you let them go with their checks? What happens if they'd wanted to do a DNA test and genetic screening? The test is easy, but is it a small price to pay?
Sure, why not?
What happens if you've had some bad luck in your life (e.g. your last business went bust in the recession, or you had some ridiculously expensive medical bills) and you're working your way out of bad credit?
There are two possibilities in that scenario. Either you get the job, or you don't.
Does that mean you're going to be a bad employee?
Not necessarily, but it might. If you've never paid your student loans and your wife has a judgement against you for never paying child support chances are you're not a very trustworthy person. Just like low SAT scores don't guarantee you'll flunk out of college, a bad credit rating doesn't guarantee you'll be a bad employee. But a credit rating shows your employer how well you have kept your promises in the past. Past performance is sometimes an indicator of future performance. It's at least something which should be investigated further.
So does this mean that the only time I won't be paying tax on my online purchases will be when I'm shopping at stores in my home state?
No, it doesn't.
This strikes me as at least a little bit absurd. If I mail order something from a company in a state that charges sales tak I don't have to pay it; why should this be any different?
Perhaps you should have waited for the answer to your question before criticising it.
So this means powells.com has a competitive advantage over amazon.com, since Powell's ("the world's largest bookstore") is based in Portland and won't charge you sales tax while Amazon will?
Well, it also means that big companies like Amazon can now build warehouses in California and all the other states and have the competitive advantages of faster and cheaper shipping costs (as well as pick-up possibilities).
Anyway, if I'm buying online from a company based California, will I be charged taxes by the state of California?
No.
If someone from California buys online from a company based in Oregon, will the Oregon company have to charge them California sales tax? That hardly makes sense.
Somehow I'm guessing Oregon isn't one of the 38 states who agreed to this deal.
The US economy is hurting, brick and mortar retailers are struggling to stay alive. Consumer spending is down. And they want to start taxing online purchases NOW?
Hmm, wait a second. Online purchases are already taxed. They just want the tax to be collected by the retailer on the sale, rather than wait around until the use tax forms go around.
And if there was no such thing as the internet, then there would be no spam, so there would be no spam filters, so this wouldn't have happened. Ban the internet! Only then can people have girlfriends!
This was a tragedy of epic proportions -- the possibility that we in the US (and as one of the major players in manned space flight) might shy away from exploration and adventure because it was dangerous.
Because it's dangerous to upper/middle class citizens. I don't see anyone suggesting that we stop coal mining or cargo shipping because a few of our lower class die each year from it. In fact, when the shipping union ordered its workers to follow the proper safety routines the corporations locked them out until George Bush made an executive order forcing them back to work.
we will see a slashdot story about the sale of shuttle parts on eBay being shut down. (Don't do it, the shuttle parts are still owned by NASA, and you'll get FBI agents raiding your house searching for the stolen property.)
Slashdot Mirror
Only if Google chooses to crawl the page. That's the difference: The page does not automatically get fed into Google by the creator. Google goes out and requests it. Google opts-in.
But you likewise opt-in by accepting the TCP connection request. I think google is an appropriate example, because while there is no one actually opting-in, there is an automated process in place which will transfer and store the data. By putting crap on the internet, you cost google money.
If I put up a web page criticizing government officials, it does not force anyone to incur a cost.
Likewise if you send someone an email.
How do you know if the recipient will be picking up his e-mail via long-distance dial-up, receiving it on a cell phone, or by some other means that has a direct-to-recipient cost?
No one is forced to pick up his e-mail via long-distance, etc. In fact, no one is forced to pick up his e-mail at all.
And how do they decide whether to download it? They download part of it and then check the sender, subject, etc.? Sounds like downloading to me.
How they decide is irrelevant. Again go back to the google example. How does google decide whether to download someone's shitty website? They have to download part of it and then check, blah blah blah.
Because the car is my property, and you're not allowed to damage my property without my permission.
My mail server is my property, and you are not allowed to use [its] bandwidth and storage without my permission.
Well, using is different from damaging, and I have your permission, you specifically set up a server to allow people to use your bandwidth and storage! The question then becomes who are you allowing, and for what purpose. This is where I draw analogy to trespassing laws, and suggest a Do Not Email list for those who wish to clarify what permissions they are allowing. Of course the de facto standard is that anything is allowed, so we need to take a few years easing into this.
My mail server does not have AI or enforce my views and I do not sit at a monitor 24/7 hitting "accept" and "reject" buttons as SMTP connections are established.
Nor does google's webcrawler.
If you are going to say that the mail server should not accept messages from unknown senders, I'll say that your car should start itself and move out of the way if you don't want me to stencil an ad on it.
But there's a huge difference. Your computer accepts messages because you specifically set it up to do so. I didn't set up my car so that people could stencil it.
I said: If you don't want unknown people putting emails in your mailbox, don't accept connections from unknown people.
That's whitelisting: a list of senders from whom you will accept connections.
I see. Well it wasn't meant to be a good solution or anything. Email is powerful because it allows anonymous communications. I don't have a whitelist in place, but I see spam as just one of the necessary evils of allowing anonymous communications.
My current sig: Driving SUVs supports terrorism
Finally, something upon which we can agree.
Actually, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. I mean, yeah, driving SUVs contributes slightly to terrorism, but so does riding the bus. For that matter, so does writing this message.
If I put up a web page criticizing government officials, it does not force anyone to incur a cost.
Likewise if you send someone an email.
Only those people that choose to visit the page will pay to download it.
Only those people that choose to download the email will pay to download it.
It will not cost the government money.
No, but it'll cost google money.
Am I free to paint an ad onto your car?
No.
Why should the government limit my free speech like that? Why can't I stencil an ad onto the side of your car?
Because the car is my property, and you're not allowed to damage my property without my permission.
Because it would cost you money to fix, inconvenience you, and reduce the value of something you paid for?
Not just that. The key is that you have no permission.
Sounds a lot like spam e-mail to me.
Email is sent with permission. If you don't want the email, don't accept the email. You are free to do that.
Recipients pay for the vast majority of the delivery of spam through higher ISP fees.
Such indirect damages, even if truly existing (I argue they are not), should not be regulated. The ISP, if anyone, is the one suffering the damages, and therefore only the ISP should have such a claim.
First you claim that I can decide what can be sent to me, then you tell me that I can only decide who can send e-mail me.
I think you know where your decision lies. At any time you can disconnect.
By the way, I read your whitelisting suggestion to a professional acquaintance just for a sanity check. You didn't do well...
What whitelisting suggestion? I think you're confusing me with someone else.
Who do you think is paying the cost of the bandwidth, servers, storage, and administration for e-mail if it's not the recipients?
The ISPs.
Many ISPs, in fact, estimate that spam costs individual higher ISP fees by several dollars each month.
Many record companies estimate that P2P filesharing costs consumers several dollars each CD.
That's like saying that patients don't pay for higher malpractice insurance -- because it isn't a line-item on their doctor bill.
Exactly. They don't pay for it, in a legal sense. If insurance companies illegally raise malpractice insurance rates, consumers can't then sue them for it. The hospitals have to sue, because they are the ones suffering the damages.
You agree that posting a message that says "please, if you are a lawyer in Virginia, call me collect" is not an invitation to telephone soliciters to call collect.
1. Should it be legal for the telephone solicters to call collect after seeing said message? If not, why?
Sure, it should be legal for anyone to call collect, as long as your contractual arrangement with your telephone company doesn't prohibit it (and you don't have a restraining order or some other special circumstances, harassment is still illegal).
2. Suppose the message said "call my cell phone." Would publishing that number give the telephone soliciters an invitation and legal right to call it?
Well, I'm not going to say whether it would give them a legal right, since I'm not a lawyer. But I can say that it shouldn't give them a legal right. They should ahve that right to begin with, as long as their contractual arrangement with their phone company doesn't prohibit it.
3. What if it said "call my toll free number", would that be an "open invitation" to telephone soliciters to call that number?
If you said it to a telephone soliciter, of course it would.
4. How is an "unrestricted email account" an invitation to spammers while an unrestricted cell phone number or unrestricted toll-free number is not an invitation to telephone soliciters?
It's not an invitation. What I'm saying is that no invitation is required.
As to your comment about a government-mandated "no trespassing" sign for e-mail, how would it work?
The easiest way would be a DNE (do not email) list, similar to the do not call lists that some states have.
Suppose I posted one. Would that mean that no one could e-mail me? Or would it apply only to commercial solicitations?
Due to the commerce clause, it could only apply to commercial emails. Presumably congress would make that only unsolicited commercial emails. And of course it would have to be only for willful infringement, at least for the first few years to give businesses time to adjust.
I honestly think that the public "no trespassing" signs for e-mail would solve the problem as long as there was a stiff criminal penalty for ignoring said signs.
Criminal penalties would definately have to be restricted to willful infringement. And even then, I'm not sure I'd want that. Maybe for a second or more offense.
But anything that relies on the general public having to identify, track down, and sue the spammers is destined for failure -- unless there is a guaranteed minimum judgement that makes such lawsuit profitable.
Even then it would still discourage most people, since John Doe suits generally can not be entered into in small claims court. That's why I feel that technical solutions are the most likely to succeed. And it seems that legislation is likely to discourage technical solutions. So if I had my choice I'd want a strong statement from the government that email is completely unrestricted, and that states must not get involved.
The law exists to protect exployers from over working their employees. So why should a person making a high salary not have that protection?
Because they don't need or want it.
Personally I'd vote for the hourly limit to be 35 hours before overtime kicked in. Then maybe there wouldn't be so many unemployed people and people would get more time off (and less money of couse).
Nah, they'd just lower people's base salaries. The only ways to get people to actually cut back their hours would be taxation and actual limits.
That instruction was probably meant for the editors.
That's like saying that being mugged is one of the prices of living in a free society.
No, it's nothing like that.
Am I free to paint an ad onto your car?
No.
Am I free to call you collect at 2:00AM to tell you about my MLM scheme?
You should be.
Am I free to fax ads to your fax machine (no, it's specifically illegal for the same reason that spam should be).
Actually there's a huge difference in degree. But in any case, you should be allowed to do so.
It's not nonsense at all. If I'm paying for the delivery, it's only fair that I get to decide what can be sent to me.
Well, first of all, you're not paying for the delivery. You're paying for part of the delivery.
Secondly, you do get to decide what can be sent to you. If you don't want unknown people putting emails in your mailbox, don't accept connections from unknown people.
That's like saying it's OK for the government to prosecute people for criticising government officials over the internet, as long as it's not illegal for them to criticise them through the mail.
First, you are mistaking commercial speech and non-commercial speech.
You're not allowed to restrict commercial speech based on content either. If you'd prefer, it's like saying it's OK for the government to prosecute people for reporting government criticism over their commercial internet site, as long as it's not illegal for them to criticise them through their commercial mailing list.
Secondly, the taxpayers are the ones paying for the government official's e-mail. Very different and therefore a flawed analogy.
Huh? Who said anything about the government official's e-mail. I'm talking about a law saying you can't criticise government officials, to each other.
It's more like saying that a telephone soliciter can't call cell phones and toll-free numbers (where the recipients pays for the calls) but can call normal telephones.
But most recipients don't pay for email. At least not any more than they pay for local telephone service. Your analogy would work if the law only targetted people who pay a fee for every email they receive, or who pay based on how much bandwidth they receive. And then I would be forced to criticise the telephone law as well as the online one, which I have no problem doing. I don't agree with that law either.
I'm willing to pay the cost to receive job and interview offers, not spam.
That's great, but unfornately, not everyone has the same threshold as you. That's why I have no problem with a DNE (do not email) list, but I do have a problem with the government deciding what is proper speech, and what is not.
The former is implied when I post the resumé.
I'd say the latter is equally implied.
. Heck, I might even state it outright. There's no way that any "reasonable person" could view my resumé online and think "this guy must want me to tell him about herbal Viagra."
OK, but what about "this guy must want me to tell him about my recruitment service," or "this guy must want me to tell him how to improve his resumé?"
It's like the trespassing laws that most states including my own have. The government set up a standard about how to post no trespassing signs. If someone trespasses and you don't have a sign, you can only sue for actual, not punitive, damages.
If you want to sue spammers for the $0.0000001 they actually cost you, fine.
Suppose I post a message online that says "please, if you are a lawyer in Virginia, call me collect." I don't see that as an open invitation for random people who see the message to call me to tell me about breast enlargers, free credit reports, refinancing my mortgage, and how to become an Internet millionaire. Do you?
Well, personally I see the mere fact that you have an unrestricted email account as that open invitation. But to answer your question, no, I don't. But the resume case is an example of implied solicitation, not direct solicitation.
Kind of an ugly choice: Make your contact information less accessible to potential employers or be prepared for a deluge of spam.
It's one of the prices of living in a free society.
Do you really want a judge deciding that "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this job" is OK but "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this penis enlargement" isn't?
Yes. Without question.
Oh well, I don't.
It's not the speech that is being restrained, just the delivery method.
That's nonsense. You're allowing some types of speech to use that delivery method, but you're not allowing others.
If those same advertisers wanted to use my postal mailing address to send me ads via the USPS, then I'd have no legitimate complaint.
That's like saying it's OK for the government to prosecute people for criticising government officials over the internet, as long as it's not illegal for them to criticise them through the mail.
They would be paying the cost to deliver the ads to me. It would cost me nothing.
But if the cost is your complaint then you have to make illegal the messages offering to hire you along with the ones that want to sell you something.
Or better yet, just charge people to send you email, if that's what you want.
That won't work unless you specifically make your resumé "confidential."
Then the only way to stop spam is to make your resumé "confidential."
Do you really want a judge deciding that "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this job" is OK but "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this penis enlargement" isn't? What about "I saw your resumé so I decided to offer you this recruitment service," or "this resumé writing service?" Seems to me like a prior restraint on speech based on content.
The "false headers" laws have different problems. As long as they restrict the law to willful infringement attached to commercial speech, I guess I could see it as legitimate though. Otherwise I would argue that there's no mens rea, since historically e-mail does not have such a restriction, and/or that the law exceeds congressional power under the commerce clause.
Because fraud is fraud, and forging headers is fraud.
Fraud is already illegal, so why do we need a new law, then?
Forging headers may be fraud. But it may not be.
Hmm. NBC does this to me all the time (sends unwanted commercials into my home).
Suppose you post your resumï½ on Monster.com. Who are you going to whitelist?
monster.com
How far would you let them go with their checks? What happens if they'd wanted to do a DNA test and genetic screening? The test is easy, but is it a small price to pay?
Sure, why not?
What happens if you've had some bad luck in your life (e.g. your last business went bust in the recession, or you had some ridiculously expensive medical bills) and you're working your way out of bad credit?
There are two possibilities in that scenario. Either you get the job, or you don't.
Does that mean you're going to be a bad employee?
Not necessarily, but it might. If you've never paid your student loans and your wife has a judgement against you for never paying child support chances are you're not a very trustworthy person. Just like low SAT scores don't guarantee you'll flunk out of college, a bad credit rating doesn't guarantee you'll be a bad employee. But a credit rating shows your employer how well you have kept your promises in the past. Past performance is sometimes an indicator of future performance. It's at least something which should be investigated further.
Yes, and more importantly, the more people who refuse to submit to this the less [sic] companies will do it.
Actually it sounds like a good way to separate the hard heads from the "yessirs".
My problem is that amazon.com et al, may start charging sales tax AND shipping nad handling. What's the point then?
The point is we won't continue having people buy from a companies whose sole purpose is to help people illegally avoid taxes.
So does this mean that the only time I won't be paying tax on my online purchases will be when I'm shopping at stores in my home state?
No, it doesn't.
This strikes me as at least a little bit absurd. If I mail order something from a company in a state that charges sales tak I don't have to pay it; why should this be any different?
Perhaps you should have waited for the answer to your question before criticising it.
So this means powells.com has a competitive advantage over amazon.com, since Powell's ("the world's largest bookstore") is based in Portland and won't charge you sales tax while Amazon will?
Well, it also means that big companies like Amazon can now build warehouses in California and all the other states and have the competitive advantages of faster and cheaper shipping costs (as well as pick-up possibilities).
Anyway, if I'm buying online from a company based California, will I be charged taxes by the state of California?
No.
If someone from California buys online from a company based in Oregon, will the Oregon company have to charge them California sales tax? That hardly makes sense.
Somehow I'm guessing Oregon isn't one of the 38 states who agreed to this deal.
The US economy is hurting, brick and mortar retailers are struggling to stay alive. Consumer spending is down. And they want to start taxing online purchases NOW?
Hmm, wait a second. Online purchases are already taxed. They just want the tax to be collected by the retailer on the sale, rather than wait around until the use tax forms go around.
Now that was a real insight.
The criticism is not because you goofed up. The criticism is because you try to blame your goof-up on spam.
And if there was no such thing as the internet, then there would be no spam, so there would be no spam filters, so this wouldn't have happened. Ban the internet! Only then can people have girlfriends!
so i can say, with certainty, that my personal life has been greatly and adversely affected by spam.
How do you know the effect was adverse?
Or it's just the beginning of the classified part of the project.
This was a tragedy of epic proportions -- the possibility that we in the US (and as one of the major players in manned space flight) might shy away from exploration and adventure because it was dangerous.
Because it's dangerous to upper/middle class citizens. I don't see anyone suggesting that we stop coal mining or cargo shipping because a few of our lower class die each year from it. In fact, when the shipping union ordered its workers to follow the proper safety routines the corporations locked them out until George Bush made an executive order forcing them back to work.
we will see a slashdot story about the sale of shuttle parts on eBay being shut down. (Don't do it, the shuttle parts are still owned by NASA, and you'll get FBI agents raiding your house searching for the stolen property.)
will do what you need