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 Provocations
Michael
LaBossiere
Number
Eleven: Evil Spam
Anyone
who has an email account is familiar with spam - the unwanted, unasked
for email that typically offers, among other things, dubious products,
pyramid schemes, scams and pornography. Laying aside moral questions
about the content of spam, there is the question of the morality
of spam itself.
The
few spammers who are willing to discuss it claim that advertising
spam is acceptable. Typically, they argue their spam is like any
form of advertising. They often draw an analogy between spam and
printed mail advertising. If pressed further, they tend to assert
they have a right to make money.
It
is contended that the practice of spamming is immoral. To prove
this, I will address the standard defense of spam.
The
analogy between spam and postal advertising is a false one. In the
case of postal advertising, the advertiser has to pay postage. With
spam, the spammer pays nothing for the spam she sends. Sticking
with the analogy, the spammer is like a person who sneaks bags of
advertising into the mail trucks without paying the postage.
The
spammer might reply that she, like everyone else, pays her ISP a
monthly fee and this entitles her to send out the spam. To counter
this, an analogy can be drawn with a toll-highway. Each person who
pays the toll has the right to take his vehicle onto the highway.
The spammer is a like a person who thinks that since he paid the
toll he has the right to bring a convoy of tractor trailers onto
the highway. Given that a spammer will send thousand of emails at
a time, it is reasonable to claim that his use (abuse) of the system
exceeds what he has paid for. Thus, spamming is wrong. If the spammers
paid their fair share, then their advertising would be like postal
advertising and just as acceptable.
The
"right to make money" is a common defense and has been
used by everybody from honest business people to members of drug
cartels. While it is not clear if there is such a right, let it
be assumed for the sake of argument.
Even
if there is a right to make money, there is still a hierarchy of
rights - some rights are more important than others. For example,
the right to free speech is outweighed by the right not to be harmed.
Thus, I do not have the right to yell "he's got SARs"
in a crowded theater.
In
the case of the spammer's "right" to make money, the main
question is: do her spamming activities violate the rights of others?
If
people have a right to make money, it also seems reasonable to grant
them other rights, such as the right not to be annoyed and the right
not to have their time wasted. While it can be difficult to judge
rights, it seems reasonable that another person's right to make
money does not give him the right to annoy others and waste their
time.
Spam
tends to be annoying to most people. Although there are programs
that help filter spam, separating the spam from the non-spam and
getting rid of the spam still wastes time. Thus, spam seems to violate
peoples' rights and is hence immoral.
The
spammer can reply that the annoyance and lost time is rather small
for each individual - a minute or two per day. Surely, he would
say, his right to make money outweighs such minor inconveniences.
When
making this reply, the spammer is taking the harm to be non-cumulative.
As she sees it, she is only doing a little bit of harm to each person,
so she concludes she is doing only a very little harm. However,
this line of reasoning is flawed. If a person steals $1 from one
person, she has stolen just a little money. But, if she steals $1
each from one million people, she has not stolen a little bit of
money - she has stolen quite a lot. In the case of spam, the spammer
is like the thief - he has not taken much from each, but he has
taken much from the whole. Given that spammers send massive amounts
of emails, the time they waste and the annoyance they generate is
truly staggering. Given the substantial amount of harm they are
creating, it must be concluded that spam is immoral, even assuming
people have a right to make money.
The
spammers can address this by putting in their subject header the
word "spam." This way people who do not wish to have their
time wasted can simply set their email filters to block all spam.
Those who wish to receive spam can simply leave their inboxes undefended.
Thus, the spammers can act on their right to make money and everyone
else can exercise their right not to be annoyed and not have their
time wasted.
Provocations
will next be updated mid July 2003
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