Understanding Ethical Issues in Networking

Email SPAM – Group 1

1.       What is SPAM and its main purpose? How the sender gets the email address?

2.    CAN SPAM Act of 2003- The law divide emails sent by business into three categories. Explain these 3   categories

3.        Discuss the act of Spamming from the perspectives of Kantianism

Pornography – Group 1

4.        Pornography is immoral. How do you explain that from Kantianism viewpoints?


      Answer 1

·         In electronic term, spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk message indiscriminately.

·         Spamming simply means trying to advertise constantly to someone who didn't ask to be advertised to. The most common way it used to be done was through emails. It became such a problem that there is an international CAN-SPAM act that every online business has to follow.

·         Spammers collect email addresses from chatrooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users' address books, and are sold to other spammers. They also use a practice known as "email appending" or "epending" in which they use known information about their target (such as a postal address) to search for the target's email address.

·         For example, when we fill the forms on the websites which are unfamiliar. This is not phishing. Phishing is when unsuspecting victim give out their details on fake websites. After we give out our phone numbers or email address to their mailing list, not only they sell out our emails address, but they also spam us with emails such as new viagra products advertisement, phishing links, viruses or even unclaimed 2 billion dollars waiting for us to claim.

Example of spam other than email spam

·         Instant messaging spam

·         Usenet newsgroup spam

·         Web search engine spam

·         Spam in blogs

·         Wiki spam

·         Online classified ads spam

·         Mobile phone messaging spam

·         Internet forum spam

·         Junk fax transmissions

·         Social networking spam

·         Television advertising

·         File sharing network spam

Answer 2

·         This is some of the excerpt from the Can Spam Act of 2003 :

·         The Spam Act says that unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent.

·         Messages should only be sent to an address when it is known that the person responsible for that address has consented to receive it.

·         A single message may be spam. The message does not need to be sent in bulk, or received in bulk.

·         3 Categories :

·         Transactional Content – messages that relate to existing business relationships or transactions.

·         For Example, bank statements from Maybank.

·         Commercial Content – messages that promote or advertise products or services

·         This advertisement from RTM’s NTV7 promotes new products and service, and it is legal.

·         Other Content – messages that are neither Commercial or Transactional

·         There are also spam emails which are illegal such as scam fraud which promises business opportunities or even rewards.

Answer 3

·         Kantian ethics are deontological, revolving entirely around duty rather than emotions or end goals. People’s actions ought to be guided by moral laws and these laws must be based on reason.

·         Scenario Example

·         Suppose I have a great new product that I wish to advertise. I send unsolicited emails to a large group of people knowing only a tiny fraction are interested.

·         It is not ethical in the perspective of Kantianism, because in this example, we do know that we can advertise using other media and show it to the right audience, other than sending spam emails.

Answer 4

·         Based on the formulation, we can derive two viewpoints. Based on the first formulation, it is stated that :-

·         Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time will to be universal moral laws.

·         Because it is inappropriate for younger persons, it is immoral when we try to make it universal.

·         And the second formulation states that :-

·         Act so that you always treat yourself and other people as ends in themselves and never only as means to an end.

·         For example, we use the body of others to gain profit for ourselves. We record it and sell it on the internet or via other methods. It is fine in the western country, but not in our country if we apply Kantianism. The goal of the person is gained unethically.