Spam, Democracy and Equal Rights

Who has the right to use the Internet? Does everyone have the same right?

On the Internet, one of the most democratic and egalitarian institutions ever devised, you would expect that everyone should have the same rights and in fact this is the position taken by almost all Internet users, but in regards to bulk email, commonly known as spam, there is a de facto anti-democracy faction which believes that, for all practical purposes, some people should have more rights than others.

There are now approximately 25 million subscribers to the major online services in the United States. There are about 20 million small businesses and several million large businesses in the U.S.

If all of them sent a conservatively-sized bulk emailing to 100,000 addresses tomorrow, the Internet would come crashing to its knees almost instantly. If a half or a quarter of them participating in such a bulk emailing would have this effect. Even if it were technically possible to carry out bulk emailing on this scale, it would be unworkable for practical reasons: email itself would become unusable because everyone would be so flooded with advertising they wouldn't be able to find the messages they wanted.

To put it simply; technical and practical considerations dictate that it is not possible for everyone to send bulk email.

The question then is: Who should have this right and who should not? Who should be the aristocracy of the Internet, with all the privileges and capabilities of technology available to them, and who should be the humble serfs, who must be content with whatever limited rights they are permitted to have by the powers that be? If there are to be privileged and underprivileged classes on the Internet, it is also worth asking who assigns the status to each Internet user.

If the Internet is to remain democratic and equitable in its treatment of its participants, the only possible answer is that, since this right cannot be granted to all it should be granted to none. A level playing field is a fair playing field.

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