Re: [dvd-discuss] EFF opposes blacklisting spammers

[Jeme A Brelin <jeme(at)brelin.net>]

On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, D. C. Sessions wrote:
> There is not one ISP in the USA which is a common carrier.
> Common-carrier status is not something that just happens; it results
> from explicit action.

My former employer, Electric Lightwave, Inc., spoke regularly of their
"common carrier status" in both their telephone and data network
businesses.

The legal department spoke of it as if it were law.  I suppose there is a
slim chance that they were all just using it as a philosophical point
(comparing the common carrier status of their telephone business with
their internet business and speaking broadly), but even if that's the
case, the original point still stands: A network service provider has an
obligation to deliver the packets that transit its network without
interference unless explicitly requested by the customers at source or
destination.

J.
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     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme@brelin.net
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