When I said "divide up amongst us", I meant "us" to mean every person and
institution that has in some way been affected by a spam, be it a
university that has had its bandwidth and disk space wasted by receiving,
storing and serving it out; or Joe User who has had to pay connect charges
while downloading the same damn thing from every newsgroup he's on, or who
has had to pay a per-item charge for it to land in his mailbox.  That's why
I mentioned a class action suit, which I (admittedly naively) assume would
give EVERYONE the right to jump in and demand just a little piece of legal
retribution from jokers like the one putting out this guide.  By the time
you add up all the 4-cents here and 2-cents here from all those 1,500,000
(or whatever number he used) Internet users, I think we could at least a
little dent in his profits.
 
I will admit that the Delete key is a wonderful thing, and I use it myself.
The problem is, many people have to PAY, one way or another, for the thing
to show up on the screen in the first place, way before an opportunity exists
to delete it.  A lot of work has been put into making sure you have the
right to not be harrassed by this junk through the phone and US Mail,
and (in most cases) you don't even pay for inbound communication through
these services.  I don't see why the same protections cannot be brought
to this medium as well, where an increasing number of folks DO pay, both
as consumers and taxpayers.
 
On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 22:50:39 -0400 Paul Vess said:
>Divide up amongst you?  What about the rest of us netters?  Do we have to
>have a license to fleece people, or does it only count for lawyers?
>Everyone gets spammed!  I don't think one professional group has cornered
>the market on getting annoyed.  Besides, most of us have a button on our
>keyboards with "Delete" written on it.  As part of sharing the internet's
>resources, it goes without saying, (or should), that no one HAS to read junk
>email.  I get it, you get it, we all get it, so wouldn't you like to be a
>DELETER too?