John Morris wrote:
FWIW, and not to drag us too far into a legal discussion, but the
above is not correct for the United States. In the US, ISPs are
not, and never have been viewed, as common carriers.
I agree on the legal point, but note that as we move further down the
path of VOIP that is likely to change. My point was more about the
inconsistency of wanting absolute control, but zero responsibility. For
starters, they don't have absolute control, and even if they try to
establish it, the endpoints will simply push them down a layer and
tunnel over whatever is allowed. More importantly they want to maintain
their zero responsibility position, and that will take precedence over
control as soon as they are taken to court because they didn't prevent
an action which they had the means to control through ever deeper packet
inspection.
The fundamental legal issue we need to deal with is the ability to
absolutely identify the originator of the mail. Is that precluded by any
existing privacy laws? If not, identity would provide the means to
pursue financial recourse for wasted time and resources. If so, we have
a non-technical issue that may prevent any solution.
Tony