I recently read this entry over at ZDNet (Slashdot story here). Now call me naive (or stupid, whatever), but I think this is definitely a good thing.
For those of you that don’t care to read either of the articles, Microsoft has filed 215 separate lawsuits against people who have both spammed (96 suits) and attempted to phish information (119 suits) from users of their free Hotmail email service.
For too long have we sat idly by and watched our mailboxes slowly fill up with more and more unrequested, useless crap. Too long have we simply been resigned to be reactive to the problem of SPAM. For once, I’m quite happy to see Microsoft take the front and do a little proactive defense. Of all the people and companies in the world today, Microsoft is probably the only one that has both the public eye and the private funds to manage a campaign against the scum of the internet.
I was particularly impressed by the fact that Microsoft was actually contacted by the Texas Attorney General’s office with a list of domain names owned by a particular spammer, in an attempt to see whether they had in fact been heavily spammed by him. Apparently, Microsoft runs about 100,000 separate email accounts on their free Hotmail service that are easily guessable by spammers and which simply sit and collect data about those that are spamming them. With this information, both Microsoft and the state of Texas were able to start a firm case against the 22-year-old advertising major listed as the fourth largest spammer in the world.
Granted, I don’t think that lawsuits are a quick fix, nor a one-stop solution to the problem, but I think this is going to provide the publicity and probably the foundation for a larger anti-SPAM campaign that will, very eventually, help to stop the growing problem of SPAM entirely.
This does, however, bring up an interesting question. Where do we draw the line with legal action? Microsoft suing spammers is ok, but the MPAA suing file swappers isn’t… This is an interesting question, and one that I don’t really have an answer to. It’s probably more than a little hypocritical for us to think that one set of legal action is alright, when it meets our needs, but when it interferes with us getting our music, it’s a very bad thing. Unfortunately, this is very true, and an argument that I can’t easily defend against. I may have to simply resign myself to being a hypocritical fool and accept the scorn that comes right along with that…
An interesting question indeed, one that certainly needs to be confronted.
My opinion: down with lawsuits of all kinds regarding this matter. And yes, that includes letting spammers take advantage of this fresh new ground called the Internet. All in the name of capitalism. We can deal with the spam, just as record companies can deal with whatever profits they claim to lose as a result of file sharing.
I imagine your opinion on the matter would probably change a bit if you got the same level of SPAM a day as I do (approximately 800 messages a day). Now granted the SPAM-fighting technology has developed to the point where I can successfully screen out 99.9% of those messages, but spammers are constantly developing new means of bypassing our filters, and as a result I still get 2 or 3 messages a day which make it in to my inbox.
Even though I don’t actually have to see any of this SPAM, it’s still a pain in the ass, because I do have to go into my SPAM folder and clear it out on a semi-regular basis (lest my mailbox at work reach the 1 gig mark, which it did over the past year when I religiously kept my SPAM). Now that we have things such as the Can-SPAM act, making this kind of activity illegal, we should take every step we can to actually enforce the law. At the very least, it would be a more appropriate use of our justice system than the current MLB hearings…
I see your point entirely, but it seems to me a choice has to be made. SPAM-free with music downloading illegal, or SPAM out the ears and all the free music you want? If legislation is made and enforced for one, it seems completely inevitable for legislation on the other to be created and enforced as well–and if that didn’t happen, it would certainly be someting of a moral dilemma.
I kind of agree with Chrissy on this one. Unless it’s identity theft and other things like that on a more serious basis, it shouldn’t be attacked with such force. It’s merely people realizing how they can use the Internet to benifit themselves and their company. I think your (mellertime) issue on spam is more of a need to complain then of an actual need for action. Sure I get a ton of spam in one of my email accounts, but it’s always spam, and clears out once every 30 days, so it’s a non issue. With you, it involves a quick check every so often for iimportant email, and a quicker “select all – delete”. I do doubt that the MPAA will see like this though, spam and music legal, etc. One side comment though, Music CD’s “from the wal-mart” are obsolete. If Record companies really wanted to move into the 21st century and stop stealing by a lot, they would be more flexible. If Apple (who didn’t even base it’s self on music and music players) can do it, why can’t a record company? Perhaps an online site where you say what songs you want on a CD and they ship it to you with shipping charge, it could even be the standard..$13 is it?….with no copy protections….*if* I pay for something, the last thing i want is to have the company I gave my money to say what i can and can not do with it.
Now see, I disagree. You also have to consider the matter from a systems administration perspective. Since I administer a corporate email server, I’ve had to deal with some problems the average user doesn’t have to bother with. I’m the one that has to evaluate, implement, and maintain the SPAM filtering technology. I’m the one that gets all the complaints when something does/doesn’t get filtered properly. I’m the one that has to worry about storage capacity and bandwidth usage for the system as a result of all this crap email (and that’s how I define SPAM. These are not legitimate businesses sending out newsletters. These are the ripoffs for Viagra and Valium online that are most obviously not legit in the slightest. I don’t want Viagra, nor “Cum thirsty hoes”.).
In the past 7 months (almost exactly), our organization has sent/received almost half a million email messages. According to SPAM filter logs, 65% of that was filtered as SPAM. That doesn’t include the 2-3 messages a day everyone gets that aren’t filtered. 65% comes out at about 325,000 messages.
After a random sampling (of 28 messages) in my SPAM folder at the moment, the average size of a SPAM is about 9.4 kb. After doing a little math, we find that this comes out to 5.0097 gb / year in SPAM alone. Total it out and it’s 0.16657 kb/s continuously being used to send and receive SPAM.
Sure, these totals aren’t that monumental given the broadband revolution, but it’s still a sizeable amount of random crap to be sent back and forth and not to accomplish anything productive. And remember, this is just for a company of 70 employees. As the business gets larger, there are more users, and the amount of SPAM increases exponentially. Now multiply that by a million different companies. We’re talking a huge amount of internet traffic wasting bandwidth (and therefore money) around the world.
Granted my original post admitted the hypocrisy of wanting spammers prosecuted, but not approving of the MPAA/RIAA lawsuits. After re-investigating the matter, I’ve decided that it’s not really hypocrisy.
On the one hand, we’ve got the MPAA/RIAA trying to protect their assets and save (make) them money in the process. The fight against SPAM would undoubtable accomplish the same result for companies around the world (not just the one contributing to the prosecution of the violators).
On the other hand, we’ve got to examine the moral aspects of the cases (at least as I see them, your opinions may vary). SPAM is worthless and regarded by society as a whole as being such. Our perspectives and laws [towards SPAM] have adapted to the change in the world as a result of the internet. However, the music industry has failed to “roll with the punches”. They’re still clinging to a business model from the 80s, before the advent of the internet. Eventually, they’ll realize that this model won’t work in the new world economy and they will be forced to change to a more net-centric model or suffer extinction. While these lawsuits against file swappers may temporarily help their business to survive in its current state, they will only delay the inevitable change that is destined to come.