RE: Hate Email and how to combat it outside the U.S.?
- Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 10:54:31 -0500
But the question still remains:
How to enforce that users do not abuse the system, and send spam or hate
email to anyone they choose without fearing any consequences for their
actions?
The question originally arose because of a person in the US using an
anonymous resender located in another country to send hate email to someone
within the US. The anonymous resender clearly states their policy that
their service is not to be used for something such as this, yet they
obviously have not built any safeguards to prevent it from happening, nor
are they willing to enforce their own policies.
I agree wholeheartedly with the withholding of personal data pertaining to
anyone (the US has very poor methods in place for keeping personal
information private), however, I disagree with abuse of the system and have
found no way via US or International Law to prevent this from happening, nor
do I see any hope for improvement in the future unless someone
technologically literate and morally obligated has been brought into office
and makes it important enough to do something about.
Regards,
Suzanne Corcorran
Sr. Web Architect
Paymentech, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Meijer [
]
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 1999 10:21 AM
To: Clive D.W. Feather
Cc: Corcorran, Suzanne E.; 'anti-spam-wg@localhost
Subject: Re: Hate Email and how to combat it outside the U.S.?
> In the EU [I was tempted to say "in civilized countries"] there is a law
> preventing people from just handing out personal data to all and sundry.
> Many of the bad practices seen in the USA (and this arguably includes
> spamming individuals) are illegal in this country. Almost certainly the
> host of the service is correct: they would be committing an offence if
they
> handed out such information without a court order. I know that I would be
> in the same situation.
In the Netherlands it is not only an issue of privacy legislation, the law
on computercrimes and the telecommunications act are also involved. I do
not know the current state of implementing our new computercrime act, but it
is supposed to let email have the same protection as snailmail. I'm in the
process of digging up the current status of implementation
Another background story is the case of Dutch state against the Dutch
provider Xs4all (and in return Xs4all sue-ed the Dutch government) in which
xs4all refused to tap the datastreams of one of their customers without a
court order. The return case was about xs4all claiming the Dutch policy
were active members of a criminal organisation as they clearly were trying
to do something in the "virtual world" that is illegal in the "real world".
I don't think both cases have finished yet...
But here you have it, the test-trial and the dilemma the anonimize site
faces.
Jan Meijer
SURFnet Services & Support
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