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A Win For Spam
September 12th 2008 General, Law

Va. Supreme Court Strikes Down State’s Anti-Spam Law.

Agee noted that in order to send an anonymous e-mail, the sender must “enter a false IP address or domain name.” And “the right to engage in anonymous speech, particularly anonymous political or religious speech, is ‘an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment,” Agee wrote, citing a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court opinion.

Looks like it might also be a win for Blogs.

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Comments on this post:

  • Old Grouch
    September 13th, 2008 | #1

    IMO, the decision (at least as reported by the Post) is screwy enough that it it probably won’t mean much.

    The court allows not only anonymous (or pseudonymous) speech, it allows the speaker to impersonate somebody else (i.e., use a false “from” address). Does that mean I can send out a bunch of penis spam signed “Justice_G._Steven_Agee@CourtOfAppeals.gov” and be legal? Not sure I like that.

    The also fail to make a clear distinction between the right to speak and the right to not listen. And they duck the theft-of-services aspect (Much spam funnels through hijacked computers.) Does their decision mean it’s legal to break into the post office and sneak my anonymous communications into the mailstream?

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