Posted 5:32 PM by Floyd

Today, Dan Gillmor, business columnist extraordinaire for the San Jose Mercury News, approved of mass mailings:

Chip maker Intel overreached when it sued a former employee who was sending e-mail to his ex-colleagues to complain about the company's actions, the California Supreme Court said this week, in a decision that may ultimately have important free speech implications.

The court said Ken Hamidi wasn't legally ``trespassing'' on Intel's computers by sending unsolicited e-mail because there was no harm to the company's systems. The ruling meant that Intel couldn't use inappropriate laws to keep out Hamidi's speech.

Predictably, Intel and its supporters are raising the specter of massive spamming as they denounce the ruling.

Does Gillmor approve of spam? Of course he does, when the target is a nasty big company. Of course not, when the target is him. Here's a Gillmor weblog post from June 20th:

June 20, 2003
"More Spam" Bill Makes Progress

Washington Post: Anti-Spam Bill Gains In Senate. The bill was quickly endorsed by major providers of e-mail accounts, including Microsoft Corp., America Online, Yahoo Inc., EarthLink Inc. and Internet auctioneer eBay Inc.

That tells you much of what you need to know. The biggest Internet companies want to block only some spam, but not their own.

This bill, which would make modest progress only at the margins, is otherwise a travesty. It would require you and me to opt out from every company that spammed us. Since there are, oh, a few million companies out there, we'll be innundated with new spam.

The bill blocks us from suing the spammers with class actions, even though it allows ISPs to sue. It pre-empts state laws.

But you know who Congress works for, right? It's not us. Big companies are winning this battle, and the rest of us will lose.

It's amazing to me that someone can be a prominent tech business columnist and blogger -- Gillmor is on the blogrolls of Instapundit, Ken Laye, Jeff Jarvis, and many others -- and yet have no idea that legislation must apply equally to all citizens and to all similar actions. If it's legal to blast emails at Intel employees criticizing Andy Grove, doesn't it also have to be legal for Dick Morris to blast emails at San Jose Mercury News employees criticizing Bill Clinton?