CircleID

I think this cost-accounting for spam is incomplete.  See here.  Eric.

Saw. An interesting perspective.

But the economic harm caused

[1] is very easy to underestimate
[2] Is not the only reason to regulate spam

Eric Goldman said:

I think this cost-accounting for spam is incomplete.  See here.  Eric.

Read some more of your paper.  I must disagree with most of its conclusions.  The 7-8% of people surveyed purchased items sold in spam, and that spam's economic damage is overrated.

If you compare the recipients of spam (and those who buy products advertised in spam) to a bell curve, keep in mind the huge, huge part of the bell curve you've entirely missed .. the over 90% of invalid recipients a spammer typically has in his mailing list.

There was this analysis of how Jeremy Jaynes (a spammer who is now in jail for the next several years) could own a million dollar home in suburban Raleigh, shares in an expensive restaurant etc - all on the profits of spam sent using zombies. 

He would send to multiple million people, an infinitesimal fraction of those would receive it. And an even smaller fraction would actually buy his product (some useless junk that was priced at $49.95 or similar, sold through mail order, or shall we say "spam order").  His costs were still low enough - courtesy "other peoples money"

And do remember that the costs only APPEAR trivial with free webmail services, or email services bundled with fixed rate, dirt cheap dialup and dsl plans.  And remember that the costs are much more visible when aggregated at the ISP's end.

If you want to see what costs you CAN face for email - I'm in a hotel room right now, with wired broadband charged at EUR 20 a day.  And I'm forced to use webmail to check my work account, as my vpn connection to my work mailbox keeps timing out.  Far slower and more cumbersome than using my usual Mozilla Thunderbird, I assure you.  What cost do you think I have to eat to clear out tons of spam from my mailbox before dealing with regular email?  (My mailbox is unfiltered for various reasons .. including that there is a ton of spam related work that I have to do, and I can hardly filter the mailbox like I do my personal accounts).

Or look at what happens when you use your treo or blackberry when roaming abroad - what costs do you then face when downloading spam?  If your argument is that access is now cheap so that end user spam costs are trivial and negligible, the point fails, hard, in several instances.

I do wish you'd rethink that paper a bit, apply your mind to these facts and rewriteit.

srs

Thus far, we are only talking about live costs, such as downloading and sorting expenditures and time losses. Social and educational losses may turn out to be even more detrimental in the long run. That's because hiding one's email address, or having none tout-court, is going to be the only way to avoid the spam game.

If we value the Internet, participating in mailing lists, contacting anyone in the globe directly, and publishing our email addresses are part of its value. Governments wishing to sacrifice that on the ephemeral altar of a negligible business increase are short-sighted.

Ale said:

If we value the Internet, participating in mailing lists, contacting anyone in the globe directly, and publishing our email addresses are part of its value. Governments wishing to sacrifice that on the ephemeral altar of a negligible business increase are short-sighted.

Participating in a mailing list or a usenet newsgroup isnt regulated by these laws.  In case it escaped your attention, the law regulates UNSOLICITED bulk email.

If you sign up to a mailing list and participate in it, just how does the email you receive through that list become unsolicited, or against an antispam law?

srs

Suresh Ramasubramanian said:

If you sign up to a mailing list and participate in it, just how does the email you receive through that list become unsolicited, or against an antispam law?

If it comes through the list it's not unsolicited, of course. However, IME, after subscribing to a list one receives more spam than before. Ditto for putting the address on a web page.

You mentioned that the law prohibits to harvest email address, but I don't think such a prohibition can ever be effective, unless senders are required to produce detailed evidence that competent human judgment has been involved in the selection of each and every recipient address. Opt-out obviously implies that spammers harvest from public repositories, or buy illegal lists whose existing addresses have been obtained in that way.

To hide email addresses is currently being taught by many. It is considered an obvious behavior by most newcomers. Yet, it is a limitation of personal freedom and it prevents interactions that might be relevant in the formation and education of people. Technical skills and foreign languages practice are the first areas that come to mind, but human interactions are obviously not limited to that.