Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam

While no one has sympathy for the devils that fill inboxes with promises of lower mortgages and larger members, not everyone is supporting the new movement to banish spammers from the Internet. Some online advocates worry that heavy-handed antispam measures, such as centralized blacklists and charging for delivery, will destroy e-mail.

Electronic Frontier Foundation's head counsel Cindy Cohn, for instance, argues that antispam crusaders are forgetting the Internet's first principle -- information flows freely from end to end. Cohn fears that the Internet's openness will be collateral damage in the war against unwanted e-mail.

Cohn says her organization's position on spam blocking can be boiled down to a simple proposition: "All nonspam e-mail should be delivered." It's an information age take on the Hippocratic oath, which requires doctors to first do no harm. "It's not the job of an ISP to block e-mail," added Cohn. "E-mail isn't a toy anymore. If I don't get an e-mailed notice from the federal district court mailing list, it's malpractice."

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