on 5/27/2003 3:39 PM Dean Anderson wrote:
I read the ruling, too. The district court said that the government
failed to satisfy the tests for restriction of commercial speech, as
outlined in Central Hudson. The appeals court reversed.
This is more waffling, and is useless. The constituionality of the law was
upheld. Everything else is irrelevant.
However, this is an interesting case, since American Blast Fax was not
represented in the Appeal, and had apparently gone out of business.
More waffling. Even if this mattered, the other defendant (fax.com) was
still in business. Not that it matters, since the court specifically
upheld the validity of the law.
In other words, cost plays a big part in the decision. But as has been
so roundly demonstrated, the cost associated with email is practically
non-existant, and does not ever cost any user more than $1 or $2 per
month, which they pay for email services.
The cost of a fax to a typical organization with bulk purchasing power is
probably on the order of $.02 per page, including the paper and ink used.
Using thermal paper from a retailer averages out to about $.06 per page.
It is very easy to demonstrate per-message costs in that same ballpark for
spam, especially once we get measured-rate circuits involved. That you do
not suffer from these burdens does not mean that nobody should be
protected from them.
As has been stated, the junk fax laws are not limited to cost protection,
and also address the usability arguments. It has been successfully proven
in this discussion that a sufficiently high volume of spam makes email
less useful for its owner.
You continue to exhibit an extraordinary willingness to argue your
opinions against the facts.
--
Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/