Bill G joins the fray

Welcome Mr Gates to the fight against spam. He has written a letter to the Senate commitee on Commerce, Science, and Transportationg laying out his thoughts on how to deal with the spam problem. Larry Lessig has a response to his proposal, which talks all about how Bill’s proposal is not the same as Larry’s. This is not the basis of my problems with Mr Gate’s messages.

To make matters worse, spam often preys on less sophisticated email users, such as our children, posing a genuine threat to personal security and privacy and threatening the very utility of email as a viable communication tool.

Excuse me? Spam often preys on children? Maybe it’s just because my daughter’s not born yet, but I’ve never seen spam which was targeting children. Seems to generally be advertising porn, or carrying instructions on making money fast, or asking you to come visit lovely Nigeria – all activities which I suspect are much more aimed at adults. Perhaps I just am not getting the “urge your parents to buy the new Spongebob video” spam. Next problem with this sentence: let’s assume Mr Gates is correct and that spam often targets children. How does this pose a genuine threat to personal security or privacy? Child gets spongebob spam. Direct consequence: armed bandits invade your home. Oh no, Spongebob spam -> FBI pulls your library checkout records and publishes them on the internet. Hmm, maybe Spongebob -> videotaped snuff movie which is then posted to the internet, personal security and privacy all in one. Problem number 3 in a single sentence: Spongebob spam to children threatens the very utility of email? Ok, I think Mr Gates has gone off the deep end.

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt though – let’s say that he was referring to all spam generally as leading to these problems, one of which is getting stuff into the hands of children which their poor sensitive eyes and psyches can’t deal with. Horribly written, but maybe that’s what he means. In that case, it’s still a bit of a stretch. The only sentiment I can agree with is that the utility of email is indeed being compromised by the flood of noise. Reception of spam does not invade privacy though (unless they found your special secret email address, and sending to that is considered a privacy invasion), and doesn’t lead to a personal security problem, unless you are flying to Nigeria to meet friendly Gen. Kaduna and putting your life in his hands…

Off to breakfast now, but will append when I return.