Free Ain’t Free

Most who have taken “Intro to Economics” in college are familiar with the term “TAANSTAFL.” My Econ 101 professor wrote that on the board as soon as he walked into the room. He proceeded to explain: “If this is the only thing you learn or remember, you’ll be far ahead of most of the world.”

For those who weren’t introduced to the term, please allow me to decode it for you:

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Yes, it’s bad grammar, but it gets the point across.

There is always a price to be paid with “free,” period. There are no exceptions. Either you’re paying with your time, your connections, or you’re paying in ways you don’t yet comprehend. You may never understand how you paid, but trust me…you did.

And free software is no different.

Some “free software” installs code on your computer that allows someone to track your Web surfing habits. They view your online history then push pop-up advertising, specifically related to your interests, as you surf the Web…wasting your time and annoying you to no end. But hey…that software was free, right?

“SpamAssassin” is a popular “free” spam-blocking application. It’s quite popular amongst the free software set.

When SpamAssassin blocks suspected spam, it creates a message that tells you why that particular message was blocked. It compares the incoming potential spam message to a list of criteria that might indicate a message is spam. If the domain name the message is being sent from (such as kbsweb.com) hides the identity of the owner, SpamAssassin considers the message potential spam.

Sounds like a good reason to block mail, right?

Unfortunately it’s a terrible idea. Over the years, scammers and rogue domain registrars have utilized the public database of domain owners as their own private spam and direct mail database. Despite the fact that the organization created to police the registrars has specifically disallowed such behavior. By posting your real address, phone number, email address, etc., you’re essentially giving these scofflaws your exact location and a way to contact you.

The market, being the ultimate genius, started to offer “private registrations” for your domain names, thereby thwarting the would-be spammers attempts to contact and defraud you. Millions of domain owners utilize this service. Millions.

As I mentioned previously, SpamAssassin made the ridiculous assumption that if a domain owner is hiding their contact information using private registration services, they’re probably a spammer. SpamAssassin utilizes the database at open-whois.org to determine which domains utilize private registration.

Here’s what open-whois.org has to say about “privacy”:

What do you have against privacy?

In a word: nothing. This is not about privacy, but about accountability. The Internet is built upon cooperation and accountability, anything which undermines accountability is a bad thing. The usability of the WHOIS database is seriously undermined by anonymous domains.

Open-whois.org’s stance on privacy and the Internet is patently ridiculous. It might have been feasible for everyone to be committed to “cooperation and accountability” when the Internet was a few thousand benevolent techno-geeks fifteen years ago. I’m pretty sure you can agree that it is not a good description for the Internet in 2008.

So, fast forward to me on the phone talking to a customer who wants to know why emails he is receiving from certain senders all go to his junk mail folder. Ugh.

Freedom isn’t free…and neither is software.

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