Re: Proposed EU Directive on Electronic Commerce

[Ragnar Lonn <]

On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Piet Beertema wrote:

> Wrong. The post office is the carrier, not the user.
> And the post office doesn't tell you what to put (or
> what not to put) into your message. Anyone trying to
> tell/force you to put specific strings into your
> message is in fact *telling you what to say*; and
> that's an interference with your freedom of speech.
> 

Ok, I understand what you mean. This is uncharted territory I think, but
mail messages are in fact altered in transit. The question then is, is the
'Subject:' header in a fundamental way different from the other mail
headers, meaning it can't be altered without affecting the sender's right
to free speech?  I guess it could be considered an integral part of the
message and because of that, protected, but on the other hand, what if the
mail clients scanned for and removed any "[UCE]" in the Subject: headers
before presenting the mail to the user?  It's really a matter of what is
being presented to the user, isn't it, rather than what is actually there?

  /Ragnar