Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!cyberoid From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Robert Jacobson) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Post Office plans to sell address databases. Message-ID: <13103@milton.u.washington.edu> Date: 17 Dec 90 06:17:39 GMT References: <13017@milton.u.washington.edu> Distribution: comp Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab, Univ. of Wash., Seattle Lines: 22 This isn't a flame, Steven. It's simply to refute your statement, made without support, that those who are putting out automated databases like Marketplace are somehow "accountable." They aren't, unless a law or contract specifically makes them so. In the absence of such law and contracts -- and there are none bearing on this product to my knowledge, so long as it excludes certain protected credit and medical information -- Lotus is in no way accountable to those whose names it distributes in Market- place. It goes without saying that junk mail is highly unecological, in that it consumes billions of tons of paper and distributes millions of tons of toxic inks to waste dumps throughout the nation, but you are certainly entitled to receive it. You might also want the right to refuse it, however, or at least not to have your trash recepticles swollen by yet more waste. It should be a personal decision. Lotus chooses not to make it so. Bob Jacobson