RE: Spam King trial set to start next month

"If people really thought about the issues, however, they wouldn't necessarily find spam any more invasive than other forms of advertising, like television commercials or junk postal mail."

Who said people don't find TV commercials and junk post mail invasive? The only reason these other two forms are not such a big deal is that they cost money therefore we see much less of it. I can't remember the last time me (or someone I know) watched a film on TV instead of a DVD. I probably haven't seen a TV commercial in a year so I can simply ignore the "invasiveness" of those kinds of "spam". I do however find it annoying that people have accepted the fact that during a 2 hour film they will have to take a 30 minute break off it for watching advertisements.

On the matter of junk postal mail, I'd be more than happy to see a company that sends unsolicited post get fined as much as the e-mail spammers. But once again, the volumes are nothing like with e-mail. With normal post you get at most 2 flyers for every normal letter. You have to admit that getting 150 new messages in my spam box for every normal message is a completely different story, and you can't just trash them without manually scanning the titles and senders in case of a false positive from the filter now, can you?

The problem now is that we've all gotten used to spam. We expect it and it doesn't bother us. We have smart filters that some people seem to trust blindly. Just consider how much spam we had to go through for it to go from being an annoyance (not to mention a security risk) to something we expect and don't mind whether it's prevented or not.

"If people really thought about the issues, however, they wouldn't necessarily find spam any more invasive than other forms of advertising, like television commercials..."

I have to disagree. Free speech ends where my privacy begins. Commercials on TV, that's public media. Remember the furor over telemarketing? That is direct and private communication. People's objection was based om invasion of privacy, and legislation has signaficantly curtailed it. Junk snail mail was mentioned, and is often objected to; however, a concept of proportionality of burden comes to play. The junk mail originator has to expend a burden comparable to that the recipient expends to look at it and throw away; so it tends to be self regulating to a degree. Spam does not have this limitation. The spammer expends no effort, or cost, in contacting you and doesn't even know who you are. (The spammer's efforts are spread over millions of recipients) Each recipient must look at it briefly and delete it manually.