Subject: RE: Web Wait measurements; spam discussion redux From: xerxes Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 07:02:12 -0400
How the Web Was Won
Subject: RE: Web Wait measurements; spam discussion redux From: xerxes Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 07:02:12 -0400
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Vin says...in part:

>I stand on my head while waiting webpages to download. The resulting
>dizziness makes me not mind the wait. Indeed, many overly-wrought graphics
>actually look even better as I pass out.

LOLOLOL....very funny Vin....  8-)   Does spam make you lose consciousness,
burst blood vessals, charm snakes, or speak in tongues, too?


>> Vin says, ...in part:
>>
>> >Not long ago, we discussed surveys that estimated the amount of time the
>> >average Internet user spent daily deleting spams. Many of these
>> surveys then
>> >converted that wasted time into the equivalent wage-hours and
>> approximated
>> >the amount of dollars spams cause users worldwide to waste each year. The
>> >results were in the high hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.

And i replied....

>> The above method is an advocasy approach to this issue.  Some of the false
>> assumptions are that everyone deletes spam everyday.  That no one deletes
>> anything but spam.  That all unsolicited e-mail is unwelcome by everyone.
>> That the amount of spam received by all users is uniform.  All these
>> assumtions are unsupported.  They are implicitly partisan positions.

>That there are false assumptions in these studies, namely that "everyone
>deletes spam everyday" and "no one deletes anything but spam" and "the
>amount of spam received by all users is uniform", is unjustified. Those
>assumptions were not in any of those surveys.

I'll wager they and /or others similar to them were there, perhaps
implicitly.  All these calculations and models are filled to the gills with
implicit assumptions.   All such models are.  This presumption is a safe
one.

>You are presuming these things
>in your reply. Those studies surveyed users and took the averages of time
>specifically spent deleting specifically spam and not other email. Nor were
>those studies never assumed, presumed, surmised, or were based upon the
>amount of spam being received by all users was uniform.

Oh no?  Well then, on what basis did the study's authors gerneralize from
the sample to the population?    Is it, for example, the same basis on
which the Salon editors made their spam claims against Ad Age, whose
publisher made a public denial of the charge?

>Instead, the studies
>took the mathematical averages based upon the aggregate of surveyed user
>responses.

And on what basis are the responses of the sample generalized to the
population?   One has to assume that the incidence of spam in the sample is
proportional to that in the population, i.e. a uniform distribution of
spam.  If this is not explicitly supported, then it is an implicit
assumption.

>Making a false presumption, then falsely attributing that
>presumption as having been stated by your opponents in a previous argument,
>is an implicitly partisan position and are explicitly rhetorical devices.

I made no false presumption Vin.  The study is based on (1) self-reported
data, not observed behavior, and (2) from a sample which its authors hope
projects to the population of all e-mail users.  For a host of
methodological reasons, this is very unlikely.

>And as for whether or not all unsolicited e-mail is unwelcome by everybody,
>no, all is not unwelcome by everyone. Only 95%-97% of email recipients don't
>want it, not 100% of recipients.

Oh?  Cite the source of that specific proportion please.  What legitimate
study backs up that assertion?
You supplied 6 links here about 7 weeks ago.  One of them had an entirely
different picture than the one painted above...."70% were not overly
offended".

Let me quote a paragragh....

"A large group (70%) reported that the topic of the email message
determined whether they would read an unsolicited message and that they
were not overly offended by this type of email. This crossed age,
education, and gender boundaries. However, as income increased, this did
not apply and they were more apt to "never" read unsolicited email and
viewed it as "offensive". .."

	http://www.primenet.com/~esearch/sv-97aac.htm


>> A waste of a person's time depends squarely on that person's perception.
>> It cannot be honestly imputed.  What one person considers useful time
>> spent, another may not.  Over generalization on what is or is not a "waste
>> of time" can be misleading.  I prefer faster loading pages.  But i do not
>> consider my wait for a page "wasted" if I am doing other things I enjoy,
>> ...even if it is just listening to music, scanning a magazine article,
>> surfing cable channels, etc......

I have a young relative who considers opera, Melville, and Latin a "waste
of time"....but his parents see things differently.  Value resides in the
eye of the beholder.   Not all unsolicited commercial messages have no
value to their recipients.

>Let's see if I understand your perceptions: Deleting something that you
>didn't ask to receive isn't a waste of your time?

Not necessarily, no.   It depends on the person and the content of the message.

>Not yet receiving
>something that you've asked to receive and nominally should have received
>immediately isn't a waste of your time?

Again, it depends on the circumstances.  With a web page, my time spent
waiting is not wasted, IF I can use a good portion of that time
productively elsewhere.  Others here have mentioned this approach. Why
insist on generalizing one group's reactions to everyone?    Many people
always have more e-mail than they can read, and switching to and from
Eudora only takes a second, if one is waiting on a slow loading page.  In
my personal case, I use a large cache, revisit the same 20 or so cites
intensively, and avoid the web from 4-7pm EST.

And when this fails, a client's T-3 is available off hours......  8-)


>Many folks have responded to this thread by saying, 'Oh, waiting for
>webpages to download isn't a waste of my time because I can brush my teeth,
>bathe the dog, play a few games of chess, or read a magazine article while
>waiting for those pages to download.' Or other similarly absurd responses.

They are not really that absurd (well, maybe the one about the
dog....splashing water is tough on electrical equipment).  Surfing web
pages need not be a single-string activity.


>>  Users have asked to receive those webpages, a crucial difference. By
>>contrast, spams
>> >are unsolicited, intrusive, and, worst of all, virtually never match a
>>user's interests.

>> Virtually never?  That is disputed by a survey you suggested that I read
>> several months ago.  I brought this contradiction to the attention of the
>> list at that time.  Don't you remember?

>No, I sincerely don't remember that. Please cite the study.

Ok, take a peek here.   	http://www.primenet.com/~esearch/sv-97aac.htm
You supplied this link to an Esearch study  May 16th.  I quoted parts of
this study to the list.    The study has N=2041 and was in the field 10/97.


>> People's dislike of spam appears inversely proportional to their
>> interest in the topic presented.  Not all users dislike all spam
>>equally.  That assumption
>> does not stand scrutiny.  A small group of good-folks are rabid
>> about their hatred of all spam, but most are not.

>Au contraire. Lets indeed see the study your mention. We'll compare it to
>the many studies that say otherwise.

I quoted a key paragraph above.......

>Besides, if it is only a small group of folks who are against spams, then
>they must be one of the most effective lobbying groups in U.S. history. Look
>at how many anti-spamming laws are under consideration in the U.S. Congress
>and state legislatures. Hire these folks as lobbyists, Bill Gates, and
>you'll have no more worries about government!

Slight exaggeration here....V    The asserertion "ain't necessarily
so"......the overwhelming majority of bills introduced each year
(thousands) go nowhere, and when they do achieve passage, are
often amended beyond recognition.  The partisan "outrage" is particularly
intense
among a special group of folks accomplished at political organizing....but
this is true of other narrowly-based interest groups too....NRA  AMA NOW
CPAC, etc etc, are a few such that come to mind.  All claim to represent
ALL the members of a wide group, but seldom do.  Legislators know this.

Will an anti-spam bill be signed this year?  When the Congress gets back
from recesss, there may be some other pressing issues that may need tending
first......   8-)

>> Filtering and self-policing can reduce spam, and in places are
>> said to have done so. Steve Outings has developed software for this
>>noble purpose.

AOL has won considerable litigation putting the largest professional
spammers out of business.  One suspects that subtracting these from the
total yields a smaller overall volume.

Moreover, Gordy gave us a link to a new service that should diminish the
economic reward for spamming methods.  Reduce this enough & the practice
should abate.


>I'm not aware of any cases of self-policing reducing spam. Nor, I believe,
>is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission aware of any such cases. Please cite
>such cases.

ISPs have taken steps to close themselves to auto-relay, making it more
difficult for spammers to disguise their origin.  This is self-policing.
Dan Dern mentions this tactic in his article.  The FTC is selectively aware.

>> Society is already over-burdened with poorly conceived, unenforceable
>>laws. And even the obviously necessary laws, against robbery, murder,
>>etc., do  not eliminate these forms of misbehavior.  Government action IS
>>NOT the solution to every social problem.  And automatically assuming
>>that Federal action is the best or only resort, is itself a threat to
>>social justice and economic good-order.<<<

>Four interesting rhetorical devices in that concluding paragraph:
>	1) A hyperbolic first sentence, attempting to disguise ANY new laws --
>including those that are effective, well-conceived, and enforceable -- under
>the guise of SOME existing laws that indeed are poorly conceived or
>unenforceable or needless.

We've seenhere  a couple of the anti-spam bills, Vin.  They were not all
especially well-written, conceived, and may prove expensive or impossible
to enforce.  That is not rhetoric or hyperbolic, just the truth.

>	2) Polar thinking in the second sentence, inferring that if something
>doesn't work all the time or cover all cases, then it shouldn't exist.

Nonsense.  The point here is that you asserted that "only legislation"
would "eliminate" the spam problem.  And I am telling you legislation will
not "eliminate" the problem.  Hundreds of years of enforcement of serious
crimes have not eliminated these.  There are various methods available for
controlling the spam problem, and legislation is not likely to be the best
available, unless it is superbly well crafted.  History suggests this
happenstance is rare indeed.

 >In the specific example cited, this would have us believe that there is not
>real point in enacting laws against robbery, murder, etc. because these do
>not work all the time.

Nope, not one bit of the sentence above reflects the point of my
observation.  The rebuttal is sheer reducto ad absurdum.  Legislation
limits problems, but does not eliminate problems, as the original assertion
suggested.  Spam can be limited by means other than legislation, and those
other methods should be allowed to work.

>It attempts to lead us to believe that there is no
>point in enacting any laws against spamming because no law can be 100%
>effective.

Limiting spam by means other than legislation may offer better results at
less cost, both public and private cost.

>	3) A truism as the third sentence, interjected as an attempt to lend
>credence to the sentences before and, particularly, after it. The absolute
>statement in that sentence also circumvents the fact that governmental may
>be the solution to some social problem.

The automatic assumption that government can or should attempt to solve
every problem is widespread, and UTTERLY FALSE.   Of course government MAY
BE the best solution to SOME problems.  The point is, if it is the best
solution to the spam problem,  and there is no real evidence that it is.
Any pressure to legislate is coming from the screaming of a narrow segment
of highly motivated partisans, not any broad population.

>	4) a logical non-sequitur as the final sentence. The first phrase
>doesn't
>logically lead to the conclusion in the second phrase. That overarching
>second phrase hasn't been justified anywhere in his prior argument.
>Moreover, the first phrase itself is faulty in that no one has been
>"automatically assuming" anything.

Here is that final sentence that troubles you so much Vin.

 "And, automatically assuming that Federal action is the best or only
resort, is itself a threat to social
 justice and economic good-order."

The above statement is straightforward and true.  It is predicated upon a
large body of policy analysis carried out over recent decades across a wide
range of administrative issues, but particularly regulation.

The "automatic assumption" ....refers to the following unsupported
assertion  someone made in a previous post .....

	"Neither filtering schemes nor industry 'self-policing' will reduce
or stop it. Only
	legislation can reduce or stop it."

This assertion reflects a partisan assumption.  Was this assumption
automatic?  If only cursory attention was paid to alternative methods of
suppressing poor behavior, then yes, "automatic" is a reasonable word to
describe the hastiness of the judgement.

Legislation to control behavior does not exist in a vacuum apart for other
alternatives.  Spam is not the only or the first commercial nusaince.
Coersion should be reserved for genuinely criminal acts, as opposed to
civil issues and public annoyances.

Personal anger over spam does not justify ignoring the opportunity to
employ less intrusive methods than Federal intervention.  Afterall, laws
have a way of producing unintended negative consequences, especially when
enacted in haste under the pressure of zealotry.  Examples of this litter
20th century history.

> The entire sentence attempts to cast his
>opponent as a radical who is against justice and social and economic order.
>Just don't tell my neighbors here in conservative Greenwich, Connecticut.
>Otherwise, they'll boot me out of the yacht club.

For the record, I do not think you are a radical, Vin;  it just appears you
may be jumping to hasty conclusions based on personal feelings, rather than
sound analysis.  My time in Old Greenwich, CT was spent working for the
Gartner Group, and they insisted on methodological clarity and rigour.  The
anti-spam vendetta is highly emotional, and too often built on largely
ill-supported allegations.  The campaign appears, at times, to be driven in
part by hate, not reason.  If so, my observation is that such policy can
have unhealthy consequences, if history is any judge.
--============_-1309461702==_ma============
Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii"

Vin says...in part:


>I stand on my head while waiting webpages to download. The resulting

>dizziness makes me not mind the wait. Indeed, many overly-wrought
graphics

>actually look even better as I pass out.


LOLOLOL....very funny Vin....  8-)   Does spam make you lose
consciousness, burst blood vessals, charm snakes, or speak in tongues,
too?  



>> Vin says, ...in part:

>>

>> >Not long ago, we discussed surveys that estimated the amount of
time the

>> >average Internet user spent daily deleting spams. Many of these

>> surveys then

>> >converted that wasted time into the equivalent wage-hours and

>> approximated

>> >the amount of dollars spams cause users worldwide to waste each
year. The

>> >results were in the high hundreds of millions to billions of
dollars.


And i replied....


>> The above method is an advocasy approach to this issue.  Some of the
false

>> assumptions are that everyone deletes spam everyday.  That no one
deletes

>> anything but spam.  That all unsolicited e-mail is unwelcome by
everyone.

>> That the amount of spam received by all users is uniform.  All
these

>> assumtions are unsupported.  They are implicitly partisan
positions.


>That there are false assumptions in these studies, namely that
"everyone

>deletes spam everyday" and "no one deletes anything but spam" and
"the

>amount of spam received by all users is uniform", is unjustified.
Those

>assumptions were not in any of those surveys. 


I'll wager they and /or others similar to them were there, perhaps
implicitly.  All these calculations and models are filled to the gills
with implicit assumptions.   All such models are.  This presumption is
a safe one.


>You are presuming these things

>in your reply. Those studies surveyed users and took the averages of
time

>specifically spent deleting specifically spam and not other email. Nor
were

>those studies never assumed, presumed, surmised, or were based upon
the

>amount of spam being received by all users was uniform. 


Oh no?  Well then, on what basis did the study's authors gerneralize
from the sample to the population?    Is it, for example, the same
basis on which the Salon editors made their spam claims against Ad Age,
whose publisher made a public denial of the charge?   


>Instead, the studies

>took the mathematical averages based upon the aggregate of surveyed
user

>responses. 


And on what basis are the responses of the sample generalized to the
population?   One has to assume that the incidence of spam in the
sample is proportional to that in the population, i.e. a uniform
distribution of spam.  If this is not explicitly supported, then it is
an implicit assumption.  


>Making a false presumption, then falsely attributing that

>presumption as having been stated by your opponents in a previous
argument,

>is an implicitly partisan position and are explicitly rhetorical
devices.


I made no false presumption Vin.  The study is based on (1)
self-reported data, not observed behavior, and (2) from a sample which
its authors hope projects to the population of all e-mail users.  For a
host of methodological reasons, this is very unlikely.    


>And as for whether or not all unsolicited e-mail is unwelcome by
everybody,

>no, all is not unwelcome by everyone. Only 95%-97% of email recipients
don't

>want it, not 100% of recipients.


Oh?  Cite the source of that specific proportion please.  What
legitimate study backs up that assertion?   

You supplied 6 links here about 7 weeks ago.  One of them had an
entirely different picture than the one painted above...."70% were not
overly offended".  


Let me quote a paragragh....


"A large group (70%) reported that the topic of the email message
determined whether they would read an unsolicited message and that they
were not overly offended by this type of email. This crossed age,
education, and gender boundaries. However, as income increased, this
did not apply and they were more apt to "never" read unsolicited email
and viewed it as "offensive". .."


	http://www.primenet.com/~esearch/sv-97aac.htm



>> A waste of a person's time depends squarely on that person's
perception.

>> It cannot be honestly imputed.  What one person considers useful
time

>> spent, another may not.  Over generalization on what is or is not a
"waste

>> of time" can be misleading.  I prefer faster loading pages.  But i
do not

>> consider my wait for a page "wasted" if I am doing other things I
enjoy,

>> ...even if it is just listening to music, scanning a magazine
article,

>> surfing cable channels, etc......


I have a young relative who considers opera, Melville, and Latin a
"waste of time"....but his parents see things differently.  Value
resides in the eye of the beholder.   Not all unsolicited commercial
messages have no value to their recipients.  


>Let's see if I understand your perceptions: Deleting something that
you

>didn't ask to receive isn't a waste of your time? 


Not necessarily, no.   It depends on the person and the content of the
message.


>Not yet receiving

>something that you've asked to receive and nominally should have
received

>immediately isn't a waste of your time?


Again, it depends on the circumstances.  With a web page, my time spent
waiting is not wasted, IF I can use a good portion of that time
productively elsewhere.  Others here have mentioned this approach. Why
insist on generalizing one group's reactions to everyone?    Many
people always have more e-mail than they can read, and switching to and
from Eudora only takes a second, if one is waiting on a slow loading
page.  In my personal case, I use a large cache, revisit the same 20 or
so cites intensively, and avoid the web from 4-7pm EST.  


And when this fails, a client's T-3 is available off hours......  8-)



>Many folks have responded to this thread by saying, 'Oh, waiting for

>webpages to download isn't a waste of my time because I can brush my
teeth,

>bathe the dog, play a few games of chess, or read a magazine article
while

>waiting for those pages to download.' Or other similarly absurd
responses.


They are not really that absurd (well, maybe the one about the
dog....splashing water is tough on electrical equipment).  Surfing web
pages need not be a single-string activity.



>>  Users have asked to receive those webpages, a crucial difference.
By contrast, spams

>> >are unsolicited, intrusive, and, worst of all, virtually never
match a user's interests.


>> Virtually never?  That is disputed by a survey you suggested that I
read

>> several months ago.  I brought this contradiction to the attention
of the

>> list at that time.  Don't you remember?


>No, I sincerely don't remember that. Please cite the study.


Ok, take a peek here.   	http://www.primenet.com/~esearch/sv-97aac.htm

You supplied this link to an Esearch study  May 16th.  I quoted parts
of this study to the list.    The study has N=2041 and was in the field
10/97.   


>> People's dislike of spam appears inversely proportional to their

>> interest in the topic presented.  Not all users dislike all spam
equally.  That assumption

>> does not stand scrutiny.  A small group of good-folks are rabid

>> about their hatred of all spam, but most are not.


>Au contraire. Lets indeed see the study your mention. We'll compare it
to

>the many studies that say otherwise.


I quoted a key paragraph above.......


>Besides, if it is only a small group of folks who are against spams,
then

>they must be one of the most effective lobbying groups in U.S.
history. Look

>at how many anti-spamming laws are under consideration in the U.S.
Congress

>and state legislatures. Hire these folks as lobbyists, Bill Gates,
and

>you'll have no more worries about government!


Slight exaggeration here....V    The asserertion "ain't necessarily
so"......the overwhelming majority of bills introduced each year
(thousands) go nowhere, and when they do achieve passage, are

often amended beyond recognition.  The partisan "outrage" is
particularly intense

among a special group of folks accomplished at political
organizing....but

this is true of other narrowly-based interest groups too....NRA  AMA
NOW

CPAC, etc etc, are a few such that come to mind.  All claim to
represent

ALL the members of a wide group, but seldom do.  Legislators know
this.


Will an anti-spam bill be signed this year?  When the Congress gets
back from recesss, there may be some other pressing issues that may
need tending first......   8-)


>> Filtering and self-policing can reduce spam, and in places are

>> said to have done so. Steve Outings has developed software for this
noble purpose.


AOL has won considerable litigation putting the largest professional
spammers out of business.  One suspects that subtracting these from the
total yields a smaller overall volume.  


Moreover, Gordy gave us a link to a new service that should diminish
the economic reward for spamming methods.  Reduce this enough & the
practice should abate.



>I'm not aware of any cases of self-policing reducing spam. Nor, I
believe,

>is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission aware of any such cases. Please
cite

>such cases.


ISPs have taken steps to close themselves to auto-relay, making it more
difficult for spammers to disguise their origin.  This is
self-policing.  Dan Dern mentions this tactic in his article.  The FTC
is selectively aware.


>> Society is already over-burdened with poorly conceived,
unenforceable laws. And even the obviously necessary laws, against
robbery, murder, etc., do  not eliminate these forms of misbehavior. 
Government action IS NOT the solution to every social problem.  And
automatically assuming that Federal action is the best or only resort,
is itself a threat to social justice and economic good-order.<<<<<<


>Four interesting rhetorical devices in that concluding paragraph:

>	1) A hyperbolic first sentence, attempting to disguise ANY new laws
--

>including those that are effective, well-conceived, and enforceable --
under

>the guise of SOME existing laws that indeed are poorly conceived or

>unenforceable or needless.


We've seenhere  a couple of the anti-spam bills, Vin.  They were not
all especially well-written, conceived, and may prove expensive or
impossible to enforce.  That is not rhetoric or hyperbolic, just the
truth.


>	2) Polar thinking in the second sentence, inferring that if
something

>doesn't work all the time or cover all cases, then it shouldn't
exist.


Nonsense.  The point here is that you asserted that "only legislation"
would "eliminate" the spam problem.  And I am telling you legislation
will not "eliminate" the problem.  Hundreds of years of enforcement of
serious crimes have not eliminated these.  There are various methods
available for controlling the spam problem, and legislation is not
likely to be the best available, unless it is superbly well crafted. 
History suggests this happenstance is rare indeed.  


 >In the specific example cited, this would have us believe that there
is not

>real point in enacting laws against robbery, murder, etc. because
these do not work all the time.


Nope, not one bit of the sentence above reflects the point of my
observation.  The rebuttal is sheer reducto ad absurdum.  Legislation
limits problems, but does not eliminate problems, as the original
assertion suggested.  Spam can be limited by means other than
legislation, and those other methods should be allowed to work.  


>It attempts to lead us to believe that there is no

>point in enacting any laws against spamming because no law can be
100%

>effective.


Limiting spam by means other than legislation may offer better results
at less cost, both public and private cost.  


>	3) A truism as the third sentence, interjected as an attempt to lend

>credence to the sentences before and, particularly, after it. The
absolute

>statement in that sentence also circumvents the fact that governmental
may

>be the solution to some social problem.


The automatic assumption that government can or should attempt to solve
every problem is widespread, and UTTERLY FALSE.   Of course government
MAY BE the best solution to SOME problems.  The point is, if it is the
best solution to the spam problem,  and there is no real evidence that
it is.   Any pressure to legislate is coming from the screaming of a
narrow segment of highly motivated partisans, not any broad
population.


>	4) a logical non-sequitur as the final sentence. The first phrase
doesn't

>logically lead to the conclusion in the second phrase. That
overarching

>second phrase hasn't been justified anywhere in his prior argument.

>Moreover, the first phrase itself is faulty in that no one has been

>"automatically assuming" anything.


Here is that final sentence that troubles you so much Vin.


 "And, automatically assuming that Federal action is the best or only
resort, is itself a threat to social

 justice and economic good-order."


The above statement is straightforward and true.  It is predicated upon
a large body of policy analysis carried out over recent decades across
a wide range of administrative issues, but particularly regulation.  


The "automatic assumption" ....refers to the following unsupported
assertion  someone made in a previous post .....


	"Neither filtering schemes nor industry 'self-policing' will
reduce or stop it. Only

	legislation can reduce or stop it."  


This assertion reflects a partisan assumption.  Was this
assumption automatic?  If only cursory attention was paid to
alternative methods of suppressing poor behavior, then yes, "automatic"
is a reasonable word to describe the hastiness of the judgement.  


Legislation to control behavior does not exist in a vacuum apart for
other alternatives.  Spam is not the only or the first commercial
nusaince.   Coersion should be reserved for genuinely criminal acts, as
opposed to civil issues and public annoyances.  


Personal anger over spam does not justify ignoring the opportunity to
employ less intrusive methods than Federal intervention.  Afterall,
laws have a way of producing unintended negative consequences,
especially when enacted in haste under the pressure of zealotry. 
Examples of this litter 20th century history.  


> The entire sentence attempts to cast his

>opponent as a radical who is against justice and social and economic
order.

>Just don't tell my neighbors here in conservative Greenwich,
Connecticut.

>Otherwise, they'll boot me out of the yacht club.


For the record, I do not think you are a radical, Vin;  it just appears
you may be jumping to hasty conclusions based on personal feelings,
rather than sound analysis.  My time in Old Greenwich, CT was spent
working for the Gartner Group, and they insisted on methodological
clarity and rigour.  The anti-spam vendetta is highly emotional, and
too often built on largely ill-supported allegations.  The campaign
appears, at times, to be driven in part by hate, not reason.  If so, my
observation is that such policy can have unhealthy consequences, if
history is any judge.   

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From i_am_chinese@hotmail.com Sun Aug  9 08:49:34 1998
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