“Internet developers and administrators have a common goal that
usually goes unspoken: they want to make the Internet as efficient
and effective as possible, but they want to do so without top-down
solutions from a central authority – governmental or otherwise.
Sure, the Internet was originally built with US government funding.
But today’s Net is so entrepreneurial and laissez-faire that
pundits have coined the phrase “cyber-libertarian” to encapsulate
the prevailing view that a free Net and a free society go
together.
“It’s important to understand that RFC 2505, “Anti-Spam
Recommendations for SMTP MTAs,” reflects those core beliefs, albeit
at a level that’s more personal than political. Although the
IETF members who contributed to these recommendations obviously
consider spam a serious problem for humans and hardware alike,
their suggestions adhere scrupulously to the established concepts
of netiquette.”