Electronic Communications, Privacy, Data Protection, and More: Recent Comments

Comment on Junk Mail – A Proposal

John Levine — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:35:54 GMT

I largely agree except that rules about transferring your personal information from one entity to another are by far the most important. Right now, it's not hard to get any individual mailer to stop, but the profusion of them is the problem. Several years ago our small daughter saw one of those ads in a magazine of starving children with big eyes, so we sent about $5 of her allowance money to the charity. Now we get about five pieces a week of junk mail from different worthy organizations. I know who the original charity was (their name is Concern) but I do not know what list brokers they've sold our name to, nor all of the evidently hundreds or thousands of other companies who've bought it.

Incidentally, the DMA's do-not-mail list is fairly effective at cutting down on paper junk from commercial mailers (but not the nonprofits who have been mailbombing us as above), and they've been shamed into ending the obnoxious $2 shakedown fee for adding yourself.
https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS/

Comment on MySpace Wins Big Against Richter?

Ryan Pitylak — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:58:52 GMT

It's interesting how Myspace has taken such a strong stance against spam lately. What's even more interesting is that many of the myspace spammers out there still won't hear the message. Myspace is purposefully sending a message that spamming on their network will cause you troubles. They'll keep after it until the message sinks in. Listen up myspace spammers!

Comment on Who Came up With LinkedIn's Algorithm?

Manas — Thu, 22 May 2008 01:25:14 GMT

"What's eerie is that they suggest individuals that I've emailed once or twice and with whom I have no public connection on the web "

When you send someone a mail, some mail apps (like gmail) add those ids in your contact list.

so two things could have happened

1) You imported your contact list to linked in and those members were found in your contact list

2) They imported their contact list and your mail id was found in that

I mentioned that in my blog post (the first link in your post)

Comment on Law Firm Blogging

jeff — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:27:56 GMT

Hi Venkat, thanks for noticing. Yes, I left Thelen and am now at Proskauer, where I am heading a new Technology, Media and Communications practice group. I've been there less than 2 weeks so I haven't had a chance to resurrect my blog and get the practice group materials organized on the website, but it's coming!!!

Jeff Neuburger

Comment on California Anti-Spammers Push Misguided Anti-Spam Bill

Dan Balsam — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:25:21 GMT

*I* didn't write the SF Gate article. I merely mentioned my website. Surely you aren't accusing a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle of not doing her job.

Deliberate misspellings (e.g., "p/e/n/1/s") is a facially deceptive practice intended to deceive spam filters. There is no first amendment right to false & deceptive commercial speech.

It is a travesty that the federal CAN-SPAM Act acknowledges injuries from spam, but yet legitimizes "truthful" spam and removes a private right of action. Contrast to the federal junk-fax law, which expressly DOES let recipients sue. ISPs, AGs, and the FTC can only do so much. If you really want to take down the spammers, you empower the little guy (i.e., the individual recipient) to bring his/her own lawsuit upon being damaged. Congress didn't empower the individual to bring legal action because Congress was heavily lobbied by the Direct Marketing Association and other business lobbyists, who learned their lesson after the junk-fax law.

Sure, some spammers/advertisers are offshore. But lots of them are right here in the U.S.

Finally, I'll point out that CAN-SPAM *only* lets the states regulate false & deceptive advertising. Which is what AB 2950 does. It's a pretty tough position, standing up in favor of falsity & deception.

Comment on California Anti-Spammers Push Misguided Anti-Spam Bill

Alex — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:30:48 GMT

Yo Dawg! Email me let's catch up...

Comment on California Anti-Spammers Push Misguided Anti-Spam Bill

William Silverstein — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:12:53 GMT

This bill is to attack spammers bypassing spam filters. Misspelling is a common technique used, ie. "re:Your v1agra orrder.:

Your partial cite of "deliberately misspelling" to read as "misspelling" is really deceptive.

Empowering individuals does deter. Take a look at the TCPA. Junk faxes went from many a day to maybe a few a month. It is not that there are millions of lawsuit a month that is the discouragement, but the risk of being sued vs. the profit resulting from it. Are there many people breaking into the vending machines in the police station?

Comment on VA S.Ct. Rejects First Amendment Challenge to Spam Statute (on Standing Grounds)

John Levine — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 23:00:25 GMT

The dissent doesn't address the detail that CAN SPAM preempts the application of this law to non-commercial speech so the law's overbreadth is entirely hypothetical at this point. See http://weblog.johnlevine.com/Email/jaynesappeal.html

Comment on Wow

Derek Linke — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:38:28 GMT

That was delightful, thank you.

Comment on Copying the Client

Eric Goldman — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:07:59 GMT

It's generally against the rules for a lawyer to hit "reply to all" and communicate with another lawyer's client unless the other lawyer has given permission. MRPC 4.2. I think it's aggressive to infer such consent merely because the lawyer included his/her client in the original communication. Eric.