[thelist] Re: legalities of posting received emails on a website

Benjamin kalos at carolina.rr.com
Mon Nov 18 12:21:01 CST 2002


I would think so.  Once it reaches my house (regular mail) it is mine.  The
good is read while the spam/advertisements are sorted into various
recycling piles.  Any that have the post paid mailing label are promptly
sent back with documents for other services stuffed back in (for good
measure).  The same thing can be said of UCE/spam I receive in my email as
well.  I'm currently collecting a bunch of this and adding commentary for a
part of the humor portion on my personal site.  If they don't want it
posted perhaps they should reconsider sending it.

That being said, if the email was not UCE/spam but was still something I
want to post I'll strip all headers and ensure complete anonymity for all
parties involved before posting it to my public site.  Unless anything is
strictly marked as confidential or for myself only it's fair game.

-benjamin

At 10:41 AM 11/18/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>Does email and postal mail differ in legalities? My understanding of
>postal mail is that once the mail is put into the post the recipient of
>that letter is the "owner" of it legally. Would this not be the same for
>email? Once it's received does not the recipient then "own" the message?
>
>~ Merlene




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