From: John C Klensin
...
However, the above statement just isn't true unless the
collection of terms and conditions I've seen are a very odd
subset. "You will not run a server" is typical. "You are
required to use ours" is much less common, and is often
associated with a commercial motive, e.g., "you are required to
use ours, and our domain on your outgoing mail, unless you pay
us more money".
I agree my words are wrong. I'd forgotten port 587.
When they say "you will not run a server" they are also implicitly
saying "you will use someone else's MTA instead of your own." You're
right that they don't prohibit the use of SUBMIT, POP3, or perhaps
even port 25 SMTP to reach an allowed MTA. However, when they say
"you will not run a server," they do not mean "you will not run an
SMTP server" in the sense I undestand "SMTP server." Most people think
"mail server" is any MTA and not only a system that answers port 25
to receive mail.
As I think you've said elsewhere, it is best to ignore service providers'
motives. That allowing customers to run "servers" increases provider
costs for bandwidth, technical support, and abuse handling is irrelevant.
The document should not spell out business models any more than it
should have a matrix of all possible combinations of offerings or
technical details of how the limitations of the various types of
services are implemented.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com