Re: [dvd-discuss] EFF opposes blacklisting spammers

["D. C. Sessions" <dcs(at)lumbercartel.com>]

On Thursday 25 October 2001 01:04, you wrote:
> 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.

Telephone, yes.  Network, no.  Probably, as you speculate, just
an attitude.

> 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.

Bull.  To the extent that it's a free market that's just a provider
differentiator.  Having per-user routing rules is either impossible
or very expensive, which means that for all practical purposes
you've just outlawed packet filtering even for those who desperately
need it (and for some people, filtering is the difference between
being able to use e-mail and not being able to use e-mail.  A few
thousand spams in the inbox every day renders the medium
useless.)

-- 
| I'm old enough that I don't have to pretend to be grown up.|
+----------- D. C. Sessions <dcs@lumbercartel.com> ----------+