Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!orstcs!rutgers!mcdchg!att!cbnewsc!dalenber
From: dalenber@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Russel Dalenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Get shareware off the network
Message-ID: <14235@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Mar 90 15:25:05 GMT
References: <206@swamps.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 30

In article <206@swamps.UUCP> val@swamps.UUCP (Val Christian) writes:
| In article <4349@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> doug@jhuvms.bitnet (Douglas Wal) writes:
|> In article <34557@watmath.waterloo.edu> bstempleton@watmath.waterloo.edu (Brad Templeton) writes:
|> ->People, USENET is not unsolicited in any manner.  It's a private club.
|> -> . . .          It bears no resemblance to a book that the post office
|> ->leaves on your doorstep.
|> Funny, I seem to remember going out and *buying* a mailbox and erecting it
|> according to post office regulations.  Does that mean that my mail is no
|> longer unsolicited and people can now send me things through the US mails
|> and demand payment?  Putting up the mailbox was certainly an explicit act
|> to allow the mail to reach me.
| 
| True, this was an explicit act, similar to getting an account on a UNIX
| system, which also allows mail to reach you. HOWEVER, in order to get
| netnews, you also have to type "rn" or "readnews", and then subscribe
| to the specific groups you want to read. THAT is like subscribing to
| a paper or a magazine, and THAT'S why netnews is NOT unsolicited.

No, using "rn" or any other newsreader is like looking in your physical
mailbox for mail.  Are you saying that since I must make an effort to
get my mail from the mailbox each day, the junk mail I am sent is *not*
unsolicited?  What rubbish.


Russel Dalenberg

att!ihlpb!dalenber
dalenber@ihlpb.att.com

Disclaimer: These are my opinions, not AT&T's