>> I think it would be more workable to simply take direct action.  We
>> should probably do the homework to identify who the bad guys are,
>> sit and cool off for a day, and then put out a call to our readers
>> for each of them to send a large file to the offending site if the
>> site hasn't cleaned up its own mess.
>
>I don't think this will work very well.  The problem is that this kind
>of action could very well be as damaging as the spams in the first
>place, and equally vulnerable to legal action.
 
Indeed.  It should be noted that, when Canter and Siegel generated
this sort of response to one of their earlier spams, they used the
resulting furor as publicity material - "We were hounded off the
Internet!" and "they don't acknowledge the *right* of commercial
speech!" were their mantras, and they generated a significant boom
in sympathy.
 
Mailbombing (even distributed) is completely unacceptable, regardless
of the situation.  It takes us down to their level.
 
>I'd love to see the net community find a way to solve this within
>itself, but the service providers are in a wierd position.  If they
>disconnect a user for misbehavior, they might be seen as actively
>controlling content, and thus they might be held responsible for the
>content of everyone's posts.  (just wait 'til somebody sends a nekkid
>picture of their kid and the service provider gets sued for
>transmitting kiddie porn.)
>
>So at this point I suspect the legal system is our best bet, but I'd
>certainly like to hear of other suggestions.
 
I realize that email and mailing list spammers are not regulated at this
time, but why don't we follow the same procedure we use for junk telephone
marketing?  In other words:
 
        - Each list owner/manager and newsgroup moderator should compose
          a simple letter, stating the reasons why the sell.com postings
          are an unacceptable instrusion in their forum.  These reasons
          might include topicality, cost issues (for our overseas friends
          who pay by-the-byte) and/or volume; however, we should be careful
          not to 'invent' reasons.
        - This letter should state that the forum in question is either
          owned by you (for sites hosting lists), managed by you on be-
          half of the owners (for remote listowners), or both.
        - This letter should also specifically include a formal request
          for sell.com to cease the publishing of their material in *your*
          forum.
 
Dispatch this letter, with copies to [log in to unmask] (the site post-
master) and [log in to unmask] (from whence sell.com receives its feed).
We might also want to set up a mailing list for the sole purpose of
archiving all of these 'cease and desist' requests.
 
Should sell.com, after receipt of this notice, conduct another foray
into your moderated newsgroup or mailing list, it would then be ap-
propriate to (once more) go directly to psi.com and say, "We informed
both them *and you*, on such-and-such a date, that these postings were
not welcome in our forum.  What do you plan to do about it *now*?"
 
This does little for unmoderated forums, such as the majority of Usenet
newsgroups, but it could be a good start for our mailing lists and mo-
derated newsgroups.
 
--Wes