[11712] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: In the matter of advertisements and lawsuits
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Miles R Fidelman)
Fri Apr 15 03:21:32 1994
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 13:05:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Miles R Fidelman <fidelman@civicnet.org>
To: Everyone Else Lurking on Com-Priv <com-priv@psi.com>,
Risks in computing <RISKS@csl.sri.com>,
Ethics in Computing <ETHICS-L@vm.gmd.de>
In-Reply-To: <01.1994Apr14.01h05m37s.PAUL-0100000@TDR.COM>
On Thu, 14 Apr 1994, Paul Robinson wrote:
> Recently - I think it was on the Com Priv list - someone complained that
> some organization had posted a message dealing with the issue
> of Green Cards and Immigration to several lists, which in essence could
> have been considered an advertisement.
>
> The provider of their E-Mail connection then immediately terminated their
> account and it was announced that the company would be suing the provider.
>
<a long and thoughtful set of comments about the shakey legal and
ethical grounds upon which the service provider terminated service>
two comments of my own:
i. there's a whole open question of the extent to which service providers
are liable for the actions of their users (i.e. is a bbs operator liable
if a user posts pornography) -- there's no good law (statutory or case)
about this, except that email privacy is protected by statute -- at least
one potentially viable position that has been expounded is that if you do
no content editing/censorship, then you're pretty close to a common
carrier, but as soon as you do any editing/censorship (e.g. like
Prodigy), then you're liable to the extent that a publisher is liable for
the contents of a magazine (libel, pornography, etc.) --- in short,
throwing someone off a system for what they said could well open that
provider up to lots of liability
ii. isn't it simpler to let the offender get barraged by 10,000 flames
and thus be unable to use their email box for anyting for months?
Miles
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Miles R. Fidelman mfidelman@civicnet.org
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