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The Devil's Advocate: Buried by junk
But is it all bad... should we just go with the flow?

By Martin Brampton

Published: Tuesday 10 June 2003

My mailbox for feedback from silicon readers is a target for all kinds of junk. Perhaps because it is featured on a prominent website, it receives frequent requests to transfer millions of dollars into my bank account along with many offers to enlarge unmentionable parts of my anatomy. I welcome the real feedback and delete all the junk.

Sometimes this flood of unwanted mail is an irritation. But is it something on which legislation is urgently needed? I am not persuaded. There are plenty of more pressing candidates for the limited legislative time available and it is difficult to draw a line that bars the unacceptable while allowing the desirable.

There is software that will make a reasonable stab at filtering out junk, although since it does not work perfectly, you may still have to look through the stuff it has weeded out. In any case, it is not difficult to identify the spoof virus warnings, bogus financial deals and surplus-to-requirements sexual suggestions. Most can be spotted at a very quick glance.

Maybe there is a bigger problem with the abuse of resources. Part of the attraction for junk mailers is that the cost of sending millions of messages is very small. To some extent, this is merely a result of the extraordinarily low cost we have achieved through the building of a global network. It also stems from the peculiar way in which transmission costs fall.

Much data is carried for nothing. By and large, networks agree to carry data for each other at no charge because it would be far too costly to figure out who is using exactly what bandwidth. Moreover, the network would have to be constantly reconfigured to find least cost routes and charges would be forever changing to keep up with pricing moves.

Each of the very many networks that make up the internet derives its revenue mainly from its own subscribers, even though their traffic spreads worldwide. Ultimately, the only people who need to care too much about abuse of bandwidth are the big internet service providers, who can, if they choose, crack down on the sources of very large mailings.

Indeed, it is part of the charm of email that at any moment something surprising may pop up. More often than not, it is a disappointment, like the messages that proclaimed love while carrying a virus. But life is like that, and mostly we still hope that something better will turn up.

The original promise of the internet was that anyone could build a website or send and receive emails. The technology was deliberately designed to provide standards that could easily be implemented on any computer or any operating system. It brought mass communication to everyone. Inevitably, we all have our views on the desirability of the hugely varied websites that have sprung up. All the same, the fact of their variety is something we ought to welcome and value.

Commercial factors have already severely narrowed what is practical, as proprietary software vendors have hijacked web standards. Big company websites have created expectations that are hard for small organisations to emulate. And the cries for more and more internet related legal regulation are quite disproportionate to the problems that have been seen. This is especially so at a time when "weapons of mass destruction" have illustrated just how suspect the managed information from government can be.

The dangers in the virtual world are much the same as those in the real world. Threats to our freedoms should not be met by curtailment of the very freedoms we are trying to preserve. We should be doing everything we can to keep the internet open and accessible, even if we have to put up with a few inconveniences. After all, when the spam gets you down, it is easy enough to obtain a new email address.