On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 03:15:55 -0000, Jim Fenton <fenton(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com>
wrote:
Very early on (during the WG chartering process), we got input from
several people that laws in the EU prohibit an email service provider
from honoring instructions from a purported sender to drop messages from
others. From what I have been told, the [snail-mail] postal model is
followed closely: the delivery agent has an obligation to deliver the
message, even if it may be forged. I'm currently trying to get more
specifics on whether this is spelled out somewhere, or is just an
extrapolation of the delivery of "post". While this could probably be
resolved by having those subject to these regulations just not implement
message rejection, we didn't want the perception to be that DKIM
violates laws in some jurisdictions.
It may very well be that this is OK if the recipient opts-in for this
service, or something like that.
I would have thought so.
And I would have thought it extrememly bad practice for any ISP to be
dropping any mail unless there is a specific opt-in, whether it would be
unlawful to do otherwise, or not.
For example, my own provider offers a service to run Spamassassin, which I
have gladly accepted. But I had to take positive action to turn it on
(there is a form on their website for doing that alongside lots of other
configuration options, including the Spamassassin level at which you want
the cutoff, and whether you want it dropped in the bit bucket of just
marked.
I am in the EU BTW, and have not heard of any problem with this sort of
filtering, which is quite widespread AIUI. Indeed our Post Office has an
obligation to deliver whatever is sent (even Craig Shergold could not
avoid that), but certainly in the UK ISPs are not Common Carriers, just as
they are not in N. America.
In any case, the notion of "Suspicious" was chosen to not be too
specific, but cover the case where the verifier (for example) rejects
messages which are suspicious.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131
Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl(_at_)clerew(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5
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