Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) is one of the things that I hate about today's Internet culture.  Advertisers (or outright swindlers) send bulk email to everybody on some mailing list, usually bought from a company that collects addresses by scanning Usenet postings, topical email lists, or Web sites.  This is just another form of Net.abuse, not unlike spamming the Usenet.

     Some people resort to emotional arguments, claiming (for example) that attempts to stop spam are censorship, a violation of their free speech rights, or an attack on the free enterprise system of America.

     These arguments are easily dispensed with.  If you cannot send unsolicited ads to anyone's personal mailbox, you still easily can post to 'for-sale' newsgroups, post ads on a web site, or join a business-related mailing list.  (Or start any or all of these yourself.)  All of these alternatives allow ordinary users who want a product or a piece of information to seek it out from businesses who provide it, without anyone having to deal with email they don't want to receive.

     As long as someone has the right to say what they want in public without fear of legal reprisals, their right to free speech is not unduly abridged.  Those who insist that free speech rights include the right to talk personally to anyone at any time are carrying things too far in my opinion.

     But reasonable counter-arguments don't always work.  From the point of view of many spammers, they are only a further attack.  After all, can't anyone just hit the delete key if they don't want to hear about the latest exciting product?  Why all the fuss and personal attacks?  They're just small business people trying to make a living, what could be wrong with trying to get their message out?

     Well, lots of things could be wrong with it.  Junk email and Usenet spam take up a lot of bandwidth on a system that's already wavering due to the incredible population explosion on the Net.  Oh, the system isn't about to go down as some people claim, but average users (especially those served by small ISPs with low-bandwidth pipes) commonly experience annoying delays.  Spam is also intrusive, like a phonecall during dinner; you can hang up right away, but the mood is ruined.

     However, the biggest argument against junk email is the financial one.  Email is not free!  The sender pays only a fraction of the cost, and the rest is shared by the owners of destination system and any systems through which the message passes.  Most often, this cost is not paid directly by the recipient, unless their ISP charges per message or per kbyte.  However we all pay indirectly, as ISP's must either raise their rates or cut their operating budgets.  This is the same argument that was used to make junk faxing illegal.  Imagine if advertisers were allowed to send paper mail and charge you for the cost of the stamp?

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