[12053] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Ad Dump Damages
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Larry Berg)
Tue May 3 14:32:57 1994
Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 08:57:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Larry Berg <nwsyslaw@netcom.com>
Reply-To: Larry Berg <nwsyslaw@netcom.com>
To: "DAN L. BURK" <DBURK@gmuvax.gmu.edu>
Cc: Multiple recipients of list <cyberia-l@birds.wm.edu>,
multiple recipients of list <com-priv@psi.com>, jeffgs@netcom.com,
adamfast@netcom.com
In-Reply-To: <9405030137.AA23262@eagle.birds.wm.edu>
A first ammendment commercial speech analysis of reasonable time, place, and
manner should take into account the overall disruption of operations that
a major ad dump can cause (unreasonable manner). If the harmful effect of
such a campaign can be quantified, then any reasonable restriction should
be upheld. This takes the matter out of the realm of "content" based
restrictions.
Furthermore, the quantification of network operations disruption, on a
systemic level, as well as on a network specific level, will establish a
basis from which actual damages can be calculated and suitable equitable
relief can be fashioned.
If a party intentionally engages in conduct which he or she knows, or
should know, will lead to damages then they should be vulnerable to a
criminal prosecution a la Robert Morris or civil liability punitive
damages as well as negligence based general damages. This will require
new legislation and test cases to be brought before the courts.
I am assuming that no matter how the Internet grows in capacity or size
that this will be an inherent risk to network operations.
This seems like a good place to add to the foundation of Internet/Cyber
law. I am willing to coordinate the process of information gathering and
reporting to quantify the damages that C&S caused in their ad dump. I am
unable to quantify this information myself. In addition to input
regarding the legal benefit from such an undertaking I would appreciate
individual support if you think this is a worthwhile effort. I am sure
that there will be more questions than answers at the outset, and the
sooner that these issues are identified the sooner we can determine the
feasibilty of this proposal.
The general effects of the ad dump are well known at this point, and no
additional descriptive contributions are necessary unless they can be
linked to service disruption for which an estimate of time and/or money
damages can be documented.
Larry Berg
nwsyslaw@netcom.com
Seattle, WA
On Mon, 2 May 1994, DAN L. BURK wrote:
> 7) Issue (reformulated): can we prevent postings based on commercial content?
>
> The reasoning is pretty much the same if we start with the premise that the
> green card messages "overloaded" the newsgroups. No one would have complained
> if they had contained fascinating and insightful discussions of whatever each
> particular group was discussing -- they only "overloaded" the newsgroups or
> "wasted bandwidth" because they constituted messages that people did not care
> to see in that place, i.e., commercial messages.
