OT: The new total email scam from Yahoo...

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Tue, Jan 24, 2006 at 11:23:22AM -0800, Bill Campbell wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2006, Kenneth Brody wrote:
> >Quoting Jay R. Ashworth (Tue, 24 Jan 2006 10:32:04 -0500):
> >[...]
> >> > Some of the primary supports of CAN-SPAM were Microsoft and Yahoo,
> >> > large ISPs who wanted to insure that it was legal for them to spem
> >> > their users.
> >>
> >> Yep; they CAN SPAN.  :-)
> >>
> >> But as for Yahoomail and the like, I believe the terms of service,
> >> which no one ever reads, require you to grant them permission to ad-tag
> >> your messages.
> >[...]
> >
> >There's gotta be something wrong with "I hereby grant you permission to
> >send ads to other people".  I expect free e-mail accounts to require the
> >person with the free account to see ads, but I don't expect someone else
> >to be able to give "my" permission to receive them.
> 
> This gets to the crux of the matter.
> 
> I can't give you permission to steal for me.

Theft is illegal.

> If something is wrong/illegal for one person to do to another, then it's
> equally wrong for a group of people (e.g. a government) to to the same
> thing no matter how many individuals vote for it.
> 
>      ``But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply.
>      See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them,
>      and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See
>      if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by
>      doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a
>      crime.'' -- Frederic Bastiat, The Law

It is illegal for a commercial entity to originate a message to a party
with whom they don't have an outstanding business relationship.

They're not originating these messages, the users of the free email
services are.

TANSTAAFL.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://baylink.pitas.com             +1 727 647 1274

	A: No.
	Q: Should I include quotations after my message body?