waltdnes(_at_)waltdnes(_dot_)org wrote:
All I ask for is...
lots more than any other industry gets!
a) the government recognize that "the internet" is a network of private
networks that are the private property of their respective owners,
who excercise full control over them. I.e. they are *NOT* "common
carriers". They have no obligation to accept any data packets,
other than those obligations spelled out in contracts, i.e. peering
agreements or contracts with customers or other signed contracts.
Therefore no legislation or regulations be enacted which would force
any data packets, including email, to be accepted against the wishes
of ISPs and their paying customers.
The telephone network is also a collection of private networks and
switches. It comprises a number of different companies, each with
different business philosophies and rules. Fortunately, government
requires them to interconnect and carry each other's traffic. Without
this level of regulation, it would be chaos. (I've been places where it
was that way!) Of course, this level of regulation is only really
applicable to technologies that are vital to commerce.
Even telephone companies don't have to carry all traffic. They can
disconnect customers and refuse to handle traffiic for a variety of
reasons. But they can only do that to their own customers, not others'.
Blocklists work just the other way around. The ISPs don't have to be
responsible for its own customers. They need only worry about blocking
traffic from their competitors.
Now, if telcos could block each others' traffic, it would certainly
solve the problem of having too many of them to choose from...
b) that ISP's and blocklist maintainers be held harmless for
good-faith efforts to block/reduce unwanted email. This includes
deliberate boycotts of non-spamming address space of bandwidth
providers who host spammers in other parts of their address space.
And *YES*, this does include the old customer-of-a-customer-of-a
customer finger-pointing scenario.
This provision would free ISPs from any liability, even if due to gross
neglegence. Why should ISPs, in particular, receive this special
dispensation in law that no other business or industry receives?
c) the fact that refusal of data traffic, other than that required by
contract, deprives someone of revenue shall *NOT* constitute cause
for civil or criminal court actions or other government sanctions
against any person (corporate or human being) that...
1) maintains and/or publishes a blocking list (DNSbl)
2) operates a mailserver that receives email from the internet, and
chooses to reject email traffic that they are not obligated by
contract to accept.
Once again, you have carved out a monsterous exemption for ISPs that
other businesses don't get. Under this, ISP A could, without criminal or
civil penalty, refuse to accept any traffic from ISP B even if the only
reason for doing so is to put ISP B out of business so as to gain
control of a market. Wow!
-----------------
ISPs are unregulated public utilities. They need to conduct themselves
that way if they want to stay that way. They don't need or deserve
special treatment such as what you propose.
If ISPs really want a solution to the problem of Spam, they should stop
being part of the problem. They should form a transparent trade group
and agree a code of conduct. A properly constructed code of conduct
would by itself result in substantial spam reduction as ISPs wishing to
retain customers will drop their seamy but profitable side businesses.
If the ISPs *then* want to implement some sort of blocklist, a buyer
will at least have some idea of what ISP to use so as to ensure hir mail
will get through. Without a code of conduct, smaller honest ISPs will be
at a serious disadvantage. Users will hear about Aunt Martha being
blocked and run to the safety of the big ISPs. The others will not survive.
When ISPs do implement their spam solutions, I certainly hope they (and
IRTF?) can find something finer than a chainsaw to solve the problem. As
public utilities, they owe it to their subscribers to provide a
competently engineered and interoperable solution - one that emphasizes
getting the mail through rather than blocking it.
-LM
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