> I'd be interested to hear if anyone has any examples where a user's email
> account been suspended for this kind of thing and what happened next,
> especially where use of the email accunt was essential to the course of
> study. Do warming notices might need to be exhibited or forms signed to
> permit it?
It is fairly standard. What happens next depends on a lot of factors
about the individual case. Most institutions have conditions of use which
forbid computer misuse. If no action is taken, the instution themselves
could be blacklisted elsewhere. Furthermore, handling complaints from those
who received the email is costly.
> Some people might well say that academic freedom was
> synonymous with academic responsibility - it surely depends on whether
> there is a common definition of both these terms. Some of the greatest
> figures of our time would hardly have been in line with others in their
> community.
And some of our most notorious criminals.....
> >
> >The problem with services like geocities, hotmail and others is that
> >they are often unwilling to take action when their users cause problems
> ...
> >if they don't they will lose members.
>
> I quite agree that they are unwilling to take action BUT no one actually
> knows (or do they?) why people join certain information providers. I
The well run ones take positive steps to prevennt spamming and are responsive
to complaints. The badly run ones don't and aren't.
> imagine that there are very few members of the mailbase lists who belong
> to Geocities. The innovcent are being published for the sake of the very
> few guilty over whom they have no power.
Banning a free US public site should have little to no impact on a
service set up to support UK academics.
If spam is left unchecked, systems become unusable either because
users have to plough through too much junk to get to their messages,
or simply the problems of traffic outstripping the system;
furthermore, the support costs of dealing with complaints are massive.
Tragically, people running computing systems in ac academic
environment don't have infinite computing or human resources. Real
decisions have to be taken in a real world in which the notion that
people can do anything they want to in the name of academic freedom
unrestricted by laws and regulations must sometimes give way to
pragmatism.
Chris Bayliss
PS. Whilst I support mailbase in their action, my main gripe with it is that
I use the proportion of spam received through lists to that received directly
as a rough measure of the success or othrwise of our anti spam measures :-)
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