On 13-mrt-04, at 3:48, Paul Vixie wrote:
An intermediary who withdraws their consent
can do so absolutely and your only recourse is to find a different
intermediary -- which you can do absolutely, so long as you have their
willingness to participate.
I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. Now traditionally in IP networks we
get away with lots of stuff, but do you think that something like this
would hold up in the voice business? And like it or not, IP networks
are becoming more and more like phone networks. If you don't mind
dialing in you still get to choose between lots of ISPs (but what if
your phone company decides to "withdraw their willingness to
participate" in phone calls to ISPs they don't own?) but the same isn't
true for broadband IP access. With great power (= wires, frequencies or
just plain market share) comes great responsibility.
(Things are slightly different for mail but not fundamentally so,
especially as some ISPs are forcing their customers to use their
relays.)