I’m not sure how I feel about this Ruling Backs Anti-Spam Activist (TechNews.com)
“An Internet site that provides personal information about an alleged purveyor of mass e-mail is not harassment and does not need to be removed, a Maryland district court judge ruled yesterday.”
I haven’t looked at the anti-spam site in detail. . While it is on Slashdot too. Francis Uy’s (Spamhaus?) personal site is not so obvious. He says:
“George tried to send me a message, and wanted to make an example of me,” he wrote. “Instead I had a message for him: Every time you try to mess with me, I will post it on the ‘Net, and more people will learn about you. I don’t encourage harassment against you, and I don’t need to. The facts speak quite loudly enough. Your best option is to crawl back under a rock and suck it up, or move to some state other than the one I live in.”
This solution looks like the makings a larger arms race. I note that John Robb posts today on a McAfee anti-spam product. How much will that cost? It’s $39.95.
John says:”Hmmm. I just installed the McAfee anti-spam program. It seems to work relatively well however, it doesn’t seem to be able to force my e-mail program (Outlook Express) to gather new e-mails after it spots a valid e-mail during a check. Here is a datapoint: I got 950 spam messages this weekend. Today I got 2. [John Robb’s Radio Weblog]”
Looks like the consumer costs of being online just keep escalating! It will need a consumer centric solution. McAfee only makes money on this product as long as spam exists. Don’t see them sponsoring Spamhaus!