[IP] more on Internet Mailing Lists vs. Specter-Leahy data security bill
Begin forwarded message:
From: Steven Champeon <schampeo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 30, 2005 12:11:59 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: lauren@xxxxxxxxxx, declan@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] Internet Mailing Lists vs. Specter-Leahy data
security bill
on Thu, Jun 30, 2005 at 11:52:52AM -0400, David Farber wrote:
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 30, 2005 11:48:18 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: lauren@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Internet Mailing Lists vs. Specter-Leahy data security bill
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Date: June 30, 2005 1:13:55 AM EDT
To: politech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
...
That's defined as a "business entity" that it's in the
regular business of "collecting, transmitting, or otherwise providing
personally identifiable information" of 5,000 or more people that are
not "customers" or "employees."
I suspect that as far as self-subscribed Internet mailing lists are
concerned, "customers" is a key word. The sorts of mailing lists
that we (Declan, Dave, me, etc.) run are all self-subscribed lists
where persons have voluntarily signed themselves up to receive our
electronic mailings, which we provide as a free service. Even
though no money is changing hands in our cases, those recipients can
still be viewed as "customers" of our mailings -- at the very least
they fulfill the key aspect of having a direct relationship with
us that they have initiated by signing up. Nor do we provide or
sell our mailing lists to other entities.
<snip>
On the other hand, there may well be applicability of such a "data
broker" law to many spammers, who often collect e-mail addresses
without the permission of the persons involved, send unsolicited
mailings, and frequently buy and sell those mailings lists like bags
of potatos.
Not to mention that every last one of them also claims that the list
members are "self-subscribed", that they "voluntarily signed themselves
up to review [their] electronic mailings", and that their mailings are
a "service" provided for free to the willing recipients.
I'm also concerned about this bill, as I provide, and have provided for
the last eight years, a mailing list community for roughly 2300 people
(webdesign-l) - note I have no way to track how many real people are
behind whatever aliases and exploders that may be signed up for the
list; for all I know, half of the "members" are actually aliases at Web
design companies with fifty people behind them. I know I've had to crack
down on various unofficial and unapproved archives of the list from time
to time. I have no way of knowing how many private archives exist. I do
know that I've seen more than 5K members of the list over the course of
its (relatively) long life, though for many I have no way of knowing
whether one address represents one person or many, or whether many
addresses all represent the same person.
The irony is that the only thing I collect about these people is
voluntarily given when they join/leave (via email, so I know where they
sent the admin messages from), post (whatever the volunteer in their
.sigs and otherwise via the content of their messages). And then by
virtue of the fact that it's a discussion, everything they send is then
forwarded to at least 2300 more people every time they post.
Granted, I'm not asking for special protection for email list
communities if it also means that spammers can hide under the same
legal language. But its worrisome just the same.
--
hesketh.com/inc. v: +1(919)834-2552 f: +1(919)834-2554 w: http://
hesketh.com
join us! http://hesketh.com/about/careers/account_manager.html
join us!
antispam news, solutions for sendmail, exim, postfix: http://
enemieslist.com/
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/