Advertisement
Promo

Security threats Toolkit

Story: Spammer loses fight for right to spam

  • Previous comment

Posted by: Faculty Rights Coalition - Texas (Monday 16 January 2006, 2:47 AM)

  • Reply

January 9, 2006. Without comment, the United States Supreme Court declined an opportunity to address the constitutionality of the CAN-SPAM Act, which regulates commercial advertising on the Internet, and the University of Texas' policy of denying off-campus entities access to its email system for distribution of advertising content and solicitation even when the messages comply with the requirements of federal law.

In denying White Buffalo Ventures' petition for review, the nation's highest appellate court let stand a 2005 ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which upheld the University of Texas’ policy of blocking companies from delivering bulk commercial e-mail ("spam") to students and university employees through its e-mail servers.

The case only addressed the status of COMMERCIAL speech under the free speech guarantees of the First Amendment. See http:// www.faculty-rights-coalition.com/WhiteBuffaloCasenote.html

An issue that remains unresolved concerns the scope of permissible regulation of POLITICAL speech on public e-mail systems.

Speech on matters of public concern has traditionally enjoyed the most protection under the freedom of expression guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the supreme court.

Whether a state university's IT system constitutes the equivalent of a public forum for the free and unfettered exchange of information and ideas, has not yet been resolved. See http://www.faculty-rights-coalition.com/FRCvShahrokhi.html

  • Previous comment

  • Reply to this comment
  • Return to story
  • Report this as offensive


Full Talkback thread

Sentry Posts Blog

Civil liberties groups attack file-sha...

Civil liberties and digital rights organisations have strongly criticised Lord Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill. Liberty said in a position paper on Tuesday that the bill, part of... More

Post a comment

Authentication risks all too human

Risks to successful online banking identification and authentication using smartcards involve a mixture of human and technological factors, according to the European Network and Information... More

1 comment

Opera censors Chinese content

Opera has updated the Chinese version of its mobile browser to stop users accessing restricted content. Opera Mini was updated on Friday from an international to a Chinese version,... More

2 comments


Skip Sub Navigation Links to CNET Brand Links

Help

Become part of the ZDNet community.

Newsletters