I'm not sure how all this discussion is helping me manage mailing lists,
it certainly is taking up more space and time than most spams. But
since List-Managers seems to have turned into AOL-Spam-Solvers, I'd
like to comment on an idea that seems to be cropping up here:
>Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 10:32:11 -0500 (CDT)
>From: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
>Subject: good net.citizenship - fighting spammers
>
>the user agreement to state that if the user is
>terminated for abuse (spams, harassment, etc),
>that part of that termination is an additional
>charge on the credit card. I suggest something
>like this:
>
>$500 - first abuse by a user (any card)
>$2500 - second abuse by a user (any card)
>$5000 - third abuse by a user (any card)
>
>Further abuses will result in legal action.
This involves assigning an awful lot of power to the ISPs, and many of
us would be reluctant to enter into a contract where the other party not
only had the power to terminate us without any mechanism for a fair
hearing or for appeal, but could hit us with hefty fines as well.
Doesn't it seem kind of inconsistent that some of the mail on this list
about AOL claims that it is a corrupt organisation run by incompetents,
and yet we want to give it this kind of incredible arbitrary power? (I
don't agree with this assessment, but I don't have total faith in AOL
either.)
Not all "spams" or "harassment" are clearcut, and I know cases where
accusations have been made that many reasonable people would disagree
with. So I don't think that we are going to solve our problems with
kangaroo courts.
--
Bill Silvert, Habitat Ecology Section, Bedford Institute of Oceanography,
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2, Tel. (902)426-1577
HED runs a WWW server at URL=http://hed.bio.dfo.ca Fax (902)426-7827
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