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> > For today's reading leisure in Doctor Don's Waiting Room < <
    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    Last week a number of people sent me messages expressing how happy
they were that AOL would be blocking selected spam sites. And there
were a few that felt is wasn't AOL's job to be their mail censor. Alas,
the happiness was short-lived. On Friday U.S. District Judge Charles R.
Wiener ordered AOL *not* to block CyberPromo's email.

    Judge Wiener will be presiding over the suit against AOL by CyberPromo
filed in March this year. He said that he wants to preserve the pre-
complaint relationship between the two parties while he examines claims
from both sides. (The trial is scheduled to start November 12.) AOL said
it will appeal the order to the 3d Circuit Court of Appeals in
Philadelphia, PA. 

    Technically the order only bars AOL from blocking Cyber Promotions's
mailing "to recipients who wish to receive the mail," so there might still
be a little room for argument here but Cyber Promo does claim (though others
dispute it) they only send mail to people who want it. Judge Wiener also
warned AOL not to interfere with Cyber Promotion's business relationships
with ISPs.
    
    As for the software capability AOL said it would provide its members,
there have been a number of complaints that it is difficult to use or
blocks all messages instead of those intended to be blocked. Others
complained that AOL promised this "kill-file" capability a year ago
and has yet to effectively deliver.

    Surprisingly I have had several complaints that AOL is merely acting
to protect the exclusivity of it's own advertising base, to which it does
extensively promote its own software upgrades, modems, books and other
merchandise, often in heavily graphical styles. And these messages can't
be blocked by subscribers. 

    Some expressed the opinion that there are varying privacy and freedom
issues at stake here. The ACLU has been watching the case but noone has
brought these larger issues into the court. Larry Frenkel, executive
director of the ACLU's Pennsylvania office, said "We think an e-mail
address should be private, whether you're the sender or the receiver. Some
of this is the right not to receive speech. It's an interesting case from
that point of view. Technology will allow users to regulate this, not the
companies who provide the services. Maybe what has to happen is to let the
market work because someone will develop technology to block junk e-mail." 

    I had to take a trip to Pennsylvania over the weekend, and was without
Net access, but Media Daily and C|Net reported this late Friday
(http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/MediaDaily and
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,3106,00.html). The New York
Times covered it on Saturday
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0907aol.html). I'll wait a few
more days and then summarize the respnses to my earlier post. If you've
got something to say and haven't sent it to me yet, there's still time.
All posts will be considered confidential except for summations that
don't refer to the sender's identity.

Doc


                       Doctor Don -- Internetist
~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~   ~ 
             Specializing in the diagnosis, prevention and
              treatment of Internet diseases and maladies.
	docdon@pobox.com			+1.757.877.4992
 ***         Member Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce          ***

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