E-Mail Ban @ UT
It seems the US Supreme Court decided that it didn’t want to weigh in to resolve a dispute between the University of Texas and an online dating service.
“The high court let stand a federal appeals court’s ruling that UT did not violate the constitutional rights of White Buffalo Ventures when it blocked 59,000 e-mails in 2003.”
At first I raised my eyebrows at the headline and content of the Wired article—I tend to get uncomfortable when “e-mail” and “ban” appear in the same sentence. However, by the time I made it to the end (which didn’t take long — the author is to the point indeed), I didn’t retain the sentiment. It seems that the dating site was sending email advertisements to UT email addresses (yes, legally obtained) in volumes that stressed the university’s computer system. Additionally, while sending the messages they claimed to have, “complied with all anti-spam laws and argued that a federal act that allows certain e-mails superseded the university’s anti-spam policy.”
Hmmm.
Is it too much of a double standard that I think there should be few, if any, restrictions on the manner in which I communicate online, yet I would prefer to never (and I mean NEVER) receive another spam email message in my inbox. And yes, I’d be very happy if the individuals and companies who spread their meat substitute around as if the entire world needs to hear their variety of penis enlargement solutions or hot stock recommendations were forced to stop.
Where is the line between hypocrisy and simply expecting a certain amount of decency from those with access to my email address? Is it reasonable for me to expect that I only receive a handful of crap in my inbox instead of a veritable shipping container’s amount? Heck, I’d settle for a bucketful.
Further, and here’s the real question I wanted to ask, is it ethical to send spam? Is it ethical to block spam? Is it ethical to block spam while also expecting the freedom to email personx@eventlastweek.com as a follow up, even though you may not be on their “whitelist”?
TAGS: This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2006 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Business Ethics, Interesting News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 9th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
The fundamental question is: Do first ammendment rights apply to corporations in the same fashion that they do to individuals? I wish they didn’t. Of course, that’s a slippery slope. A spam defense network that automatically infects the computer of the sender with a computer destroying worm would be a nice idea. That’s kind of like stuffing those business reply envelopes full of as much crap as will fit and then sending it back to the credit card companies.
I just finished my UW application. UC Davis is long in the mail, and Notre Dame was sent out yesterday. Hope you and the kid are feeling better. Regards to Megan of course. You’re probably hard enough to deal with when you’re healthy.
January 9th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
By the way, UT sucks. I’m not a big fan of USC, but had the Longhorns been playing Satan for the national championship, I would have put my money on the prince of darkness.
January 9th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
You had me rolling with your first response. The second one hurt my ribs a little…
Have you seen “The Corporation” by chance?