Reason.com
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
California courts don't seem to think much of my telecom/trespass analogy from a few days back; they've ruled that blast-emailing is not trespass, in this instance with respect to a disgruntled former employee of Intel who was sending critiques of the company to his ex-colleagues en masse via the Intel email network.
Most Popular Stories
- St. Louis Cops Worry That In-Car Cameras 'Are Being Used Against Them' (5.23)
- Here Are the 15 Senators Who Voted to Stop Armed FDA Agents From Conducting Warrantless Raids on America's Farmers (Not One of Them is a Democrat) (5.24)
- Reason "Hero of Freedom" Larry Flynt's Latest Stunt? Photoshopping a Penis into Mouth of Conservative Pundit S.E. Cupp (5.24)
- When Government Privileges Trump the Rights of Citizens (5.25)
- Plastic Bag Ban Will Put Los Angeles In Landfill (5.23)
Reason RUPE: Public Opinion Survey
- Reason-Rupe: Wisconsinites Favor Increasing Public Union Retirement Contributions to Address Budget Deficit (5.25)
- Reason-Rupe Poll Finds Support for Public Union Reforms (5.25)
- New Poll: Obama Leads Romney In Wisconsin, But Gary Johnson Could Impact the Race (5.24)
- Wisconsin Recall: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42 Among Likely Voters (5.24)
- Reason-Rupe Poll: Walker Leads Barrett 50-42, Obama Leads Romney 46-36 (5.24)
advertisements
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsSite comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.
|6.30.03 @ 7:54AM|#
Hamidi is an example of why your analogy doesn't work, except maybe from a tech-phobic standpoint. The more court rulings that recognize telephony and internet as something intangible -- and therefore something to be policied differently -- the better.
There's something immediatly suspicious about using obscure ninteenth century tort action to policy spam (though Hamidi wasn't exactly a spammer.) Not to mention, POPfile and MailWasher are widely (and freely) available.
Same goes for telecom and the Don't Call list. As far as policymaking goes, one can do more harm that Don't-Call, but the point is it isn't a *physical* property and regulating it as such allows for a host of potential abuses later on. And that threat is real; technology bridging telephony and the internet, like voice-over IP, may be harmed later by even the simplist current regulations.
After all, the failure to make that distiniction between tanigible and intangible goods is what made intellectual propertry law the archaic burden it is today
Kevin Carson|6.30.03 @ 9:30AM|#
Yet another reason why the state shouldn't be intervening in problems of phone solicitation and spam. Someday, God willing, *I'LL* be a disgruntled former employee mass emailing my former co-workers. Please don't spoil it for me.
The Lonewacko Blog|6.30.03 @ 10:26AM|#
I'm not familiar with anything that's happened regarding Hamidi in the past year or two, but this was clearly just a SLAPP suit; perhaps that had something to do with it.
|7.1.03 @ 8:12AM|#
It's odd that I never see mention of the security implications of Spammers with billions of email addresses on their systems.
This means that when they get a virus that propogates through email, it might spread to more people than when it is opened by a normal user (who might only have a hundred or so addresses).
Most of the viruses I recieve come from Spammers.