[11720] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: In the matter of advertisements and lawsuits
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (George Herbert)
Fri Apr 15 11:48:47 1994
To: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
Cc: 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>, gwh@crl.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 14 Apr 1994 02:06:21 EDT."
<01.1994Apr14.01h05m37s.PAUL-0100000@TDR.COM>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 17:40:31 -0700
From: George Herbert <gwh@crl.com>
>From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@TDR.COM>
>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.
Not quite. They posted 5000-odd seperate postings to almost all the
unmoderated Usenet newsgroups, and I heard that it ended up on
a lot of equally inappropriate mailing lists.
>The provider of their E-Mail connection then immediately terminated their
>account and it was announced that the company would be suing the provider.
The provider was Internet Direct in Phoenix, AZ (indirect.com), and
that seems to be an accurate summary of the situation as of last night.
>Someone else on here noted that it was "only in America can someone act
>like an asshole and then sue someone."
>
>Let's examine this logically, shall we.
>
>1. The holder of the account sent a message to several mailing lists.
> Was sending a message violating any law or conceivable as violating
> >standards sufficient to require immediate termination of service?
> >No. Sending a message is standard practice on Internet, and is part
> and parcel of the service.
>
>2. Was sending an off-topic message violating any law or conceivable as
> violating standards sufficient to require immediate termination of
> service? No. People sometimes make mistakes, and it happens from
> >time to time.
>
>3. Did this message violate or could it be considered as violating an
> "Acceptable Use Policy" or other standard. That's a gray area, but
> as the message itself was not a flat advertisement, I think it could
> withstand challenge as a pure advertisement. Someone on one of the
> lists said that it would have been perfectly acceptable on any list
> dealing with immigration. In short, the message probably would have
> been legal to be sent even under the NSF's AUP - assuming such a
> standard, being a government standard of content of transmitted
> material - is constitutionally permissible, another gray area that
> might not even be valid.
It almost certainly violated the standard service agreement that Internet
Direct has its users agree to. The law firm was claiming it had never
signed that agreement, but that's sort of a borderline justification
for a suit.
As additional evidence, the same firm did the same thing from Netcom
a little while ago and had their accounts there deactivated.
They seem to feel they have some right to use the net as they
want, no regard for their providers or the rest of the net's
inhabitants.
-george william herbert
gwh@crl.com Speaking only for myself
