Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!grover.llnl.gov!howell From: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Lotus Market Place Message-ID: <86563@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> Date: 21 Nov 90 18:29:15 GMT References: <48683@cornell.UUCP> Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV Reply-To: howell@grover.llnl.gov (Louis Howell) Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lines: 28 Nntp-Posting-Host: grover.llnl.gov In article <48683@cornell.UUCP>, wayner@fulla.cs.cornell.edu (Peter Wayner) writes: |> I think I argued that it might be interesting to prohibit any |> commercial venture that targetted less than some threshold, say |> 100 people. It's an okay idea and I don't think it would lead to |> the SS (funny initials) busting down any doors. Is it better than |> banning databases, sure. I think it tries to draw the line between |> what is junkmail and what is invading a specific person's privacy. I doubt if a numerical limit would be the way to go about this. It would specifically target small businesses, for one thing. A large company could just arrange to always send out at least a hundred letters, just by including a few marginal people in addition to the primary targets. On the other hand, your local bookstore, which might not even realize they were doing something illegal, could send out flyers about a book signing to the people who came to the last one and get slapped with a fine. It can't be much harder to determine whether personal data was misused to set up the list, than it would be to determine how many letters were sent out. -- Louis Howell "A few sums!" retorted Martens, with a trace of his old spirit. "A major navigational change, like the one needed to break us away from the comet and put us on an orbit to Earth, involves about a hundred thousand separate calculations. Even the computer needs several minutes for the job."