“Three years ago, the feeling was government needs to stay out of the Internet. Now, Internet service providers has really become a threat to their business, annoying their customers beyond belief.” – Virginia Delegate Timothy Hugo, executive director of the CapNet tech lobby, following the signing of one of the nation’s toughest anti-spam laws at the state level.
The TeleRead take: I’m right here in Virgnia and hoping that my state government will sue the bejesus out of artmarket.com, the makers of various organ-enlargers, mortgage-lenders, and other companies that stuff my email box–doing their best to outsmart the filter in SpamKiller
But, look, did you notice something beyond the immediate issue at hand? Yep–that’s right. Even here in this conservative state, people are demanding action from government. And that could have benefits, in terms of eventually breaking down resistance to the idea of well-stocked public digital libraries–including maybe those at the national level.
Remember, Uncle already is a big player in the copyright area. It’s just that he’s serving Hollywood, corporate monopolists and other elitists rather than the rest of us.
