Mike Roberts @ 1:2613/336 wrote on 11-30-97 17:22 about *Re: More 
on...."SPAM"...*
 LL>> If you were receiving upward of (say) 10 unsolicited phone calls a day 
at your residence
 LL>> would you tolerate it?  Myself, I have a hard time tolerating one of 
these phone calls a
 LL>> week.  
 MR> C'mon Larry,
Ummm......the name is Lawrence not Larry, Mike. (Please notice that neither 
in this message or my original message to you did I once address you as Mikey 
or some other derivative taken from the name that appears in the From: 
field.......please extend me the same curtesy.)
 MR>  who you kidding A piece of email is nowhere near as invasive as a phone 
call. 
According to your way of thinking........
 MR> A phone call, you have to asner immediately and on demand. A piece of 
email, takes 2
 MR> seconds to download 
Why should anyone be subjected to even that if they don't wish it?  It's not 
primarily a case of time/money but rather an invasion of privicy, that I have 
the biggest beef with.  
 MR> and if not interested, I can delete it at my liesure, and oh yeah, to 
your surprise, I can also
 MR> respond to it if I wish.
"to your suprise"????  I find nothing "suprising" about the option of 
replying or not.........however, I am quite suprised about your attitude 
towards me in this reply.
  LL>> Pretty naive statement, IMHO.  Have you ever been hit by
 LL>> multiple SPAM messages day after day after day and also sat there 
typing in replies to
 LL>> each and every one?  If you have, then a suggestion along the lines
 MR> I've been on the net for three years, and I have very seldom recieved 
multiple messages
 MR> from people who gave me the option of being remved from a list.
Good for you........unfortunately you are not the whole world.  Please don't 
try blanketing everyone to be in the same situation soley based on your own 
personal experience.
 MR>  I also have maybe recieved other messages from questionable 
individuals, and even then
 MR> once every 3 to 4 weeks. You make it sound like you get 30 msgs ad day 
from the same co.
No, that's how YOU are reading it.........I don't care where the unsolicited 
mail comes from, I just don't want ANY of it showing up in my mail box.
 MR>  If you do, I am with you, something should be done to stop it.
I company, 10 companies, 100 companies.......what's the difference?  All the 
unsolicited messages could say they came from God.........that doesn't negate 
the fact that I don't want them showing up in my email box, on my fax 
machine, telephone etc  in the first place.
 MR> So, BTW, If I get 4 or 5 a day, which invite me to reply with a remove 
statement, I do,  a
 MR> couple mouse clicks and remove and I'm done, Most who offer that 
courtesy, aboide by it.
That's not a courtesy but rather a selfish self preservation display of 
business interests........a display of courtesy is NOT sending the 
unsolicited mail to begin with.
 LL>> of "getting a life" would be most ap-pro-po!  
 MR> I would reccomend that to you, definitely.
As you are a self proclaimed experienced BBS/Internet user, I'm quite sure 
you are aware that the bracketed capital letters B and G following my 
statement stand for "Big Grin"..........I was kidding around; obviously you 
are not.........so be it.  If you deem, in what amounts to IMHO, wasting time 
and resources piddling around dealing with unsolicited messages every day 
(from whatever source they may come through) beneficial to your particular 
life style then that is certainly your perogative to do so..........myself, I 
have better things to do. 
 LL>> There doesn't seem to be any respect shown by businesses regarding SPAM 
type
 LL>> promotional tactics which is why there are laws in place to restrict 
their actions
 LL>> (eg: telephone soliciting).  Businesses only respond to what the law 
lays down which has
 LL>> nothing to do with respect. 
 MR> You still want to mix apples and oranges here. I can't, two different 
subjects not intrusive on
 MR> the same level as a direct phone call to your home.
Again this "logic" seems to be derived solely from your personal experiences 
which you wish to seem to project onto everyone...........my personal 
observations dictate that the situation is not how it seems to you for the 
majority of people who are subjected to the "pleasures" of SPAM mailings.  
 MR>  I don't get what you mean anyway, 
Obviously.............
 MR> there is no law against Sending out mass mail promotions, whether it be 
by US mail or
 MR> email. We all seem to get both.
Ever hear of the Junk Fax laws?  Same thing............besides which, I don't 
live in the USA (and I might also add, millions on millions of others don't 
either.)
 MR>> Unfortunately there is the snake and idiot who spams also, You can 
almost tell by his post
 MR>> he/she is shady. I wouldn't do business with them in the first place.
 LL>> But will will accept mountains of unsolicited material that costs you 
time and money?  Seems
 LL>> you are contradicting yourself.  :-) 
 MR> judge to even look at it. I don't believe that people get so much that 
it is costing them much.
 MR> I'd bet you could let a company spam you with a msg, once a day, all 
year for 5 years, and it
 MR> costs you less than twenty dollars,
So multiply that by 100,000 (conservative side) and then see how much just 
ONE company has ripped the public off.  Then double it......that's just two 
companies.  Now multiply by 10.  How about 100 companies?  A 100 companies is 
a minor drop in the bucket.   Even if we don't base the numbers on the 
extreme limits defined by your example, it doesn't take much to see how all 
the unsolicited messages being set out are costing the public a bundle.
You know what's ironic?  If people tried this kind of action in reverse, the 
companies would be screaming bloody murder.  For example, our cable company 
has just upgraded their system to include another 6 channels or so which can 
be subscribed to for extra $$$ over and above current cable rates.  The other 
night at 9:00 pm, I had an uncalled for phone call from one of their 
telephone solicitors, asking me "how are you enjoying the new channels?" and 
hoping to garner a new subscription for said channels.  I told them I wasn't 
interested in discussing it at all and hung up.  So what did these turkeys do 
but call back the very next ruddy day!   (Say 50,000 cable subscribing 
residences at .10 a call........that's $5000 free advertising for the cable 
company which the public is paying for.  If they had done it with email at 
.02 cents a message, that's still $1000 that the company saves and the public 
spends.  And this town is just a small town.......now extrapolate this to 
larger cities.)
Now just think how the companies would react to Joe Blow(s) walking in off 
the street and using the companies email and telephone facilities for their 
own means........unsolicited and costing the companies money.  Think they 
would stand for it?  Or how about if Joe Blow(s) taps into the cable 
connection for free "just to watch the news for 10 minutes each 
day".........think they would stand for it?  But that's EXACTLY what the 
companies are doing when they use the phone lines, fax services, email 
services etc that you and Joe Blow public have paid for out of their own 
pockets....and this fact doesn't even touch on the "invasion of privacy" 
issue.
 MR> something against federal law and MOney, a lot more than the couple 
seconds to download
 MR> unsolicited email.
Taking the public as a collective unit your reasoning, IMHO, falls short.
--- Sqed/32 1.14/r15155
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