Re: Junk mailers and scientologists for freedom!?
CobraBoy (tbyars@earthlink.net)
Mon, 09 Sep 1996 12:44:02 -0700
At 09:41 AM 9/9/96 -0700, Dan Kohn wrote:
><adam@cs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>>Where the heck in the first amendment does it say we have
>>a right to distribute junk mail (through AOL even!)?
>
>In Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 126
>(1989) (a dial-a-porn case), the Supreme Court ruled that commercial
>speech is specifically less protected than other speech. This is one of
>the reasons that the CDA was overturned: Congress was encouraging
>Internet content providers to use methods (like requiring a credit card)
>that were suitable for commercial speech (like dial-a-porn) but totally
>unsuited for non-commercial speech (like AIDS information on the Net).
>
>Add in the fact that junk mail has almost no cost to send, but does
>entail a cost to receive (the time to read it or delete it), and I would
>think that AOL is on firm ground for blocking the sites. Still, I have
>no issue with the judge granting a temporary restraining order to AOL
>until he examines the facts. After all, eternal vigilance is the price
>of something or another.
>
Well just playing devil's advocate here, time to dispose of it is less than
time to shift through junk mail in my mail box and throw it away.
Tim
--
** History 101**
Hiroshima 45 - Chernobyl 86 - Windows 95
=============================================
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste,
they have absolutely no taste, and what that means is, I
don't mean that in a small way I mean that in a big way.
I have a problem with the fact that they just make
really third rate products."
Steve Jobs, Triumph of the Nerds, PBS Documentary
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