[2505] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
From Whence Cometh the A. U. P.?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Thu Mar 12 23:53:45 1992
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 92 23:52:31 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: cook@tmn.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Gordon Cook's message of 12 Mar 92 22:21:23 EST (Thu) <9203122221.AA28884@tmn.com>
>From: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
> An example of the difficulty of the commercial use problem. As Mitch
> pointed out in his short testimony....the commercial use restrictions are
> preventing mny information providers from setting up businesses on the net.
>
> Steve Wolff averred toward the very end that this was just not so....any
> information provided on behalf of research or education would fall within
> acceptable use.
Since a site like World.Std.Com (and, apparently, Dialog.Com for a
brief period tho the cavalry showed up) can't get ROUTING approval to
the internet then how can this possibly be true? It's an answer that
does not hold up to the reality of the situation since one has to get
approval to even connect a network.
Mitch and I chat frequently, and I'll guess World was an example he
had in mind. Specifically, we have a vendor here on World, Quantum
Books, a high-tech bookstore near MIT, who is thus restricted. Now
consider the following quote from his Mitch's testimony:
"Users should be able to order ...
books and journals on-line from publishers and vendors."
Can't get a lot closer to a counter-example (to Steve's comment) than
that.
You can at least in theory order books from Quantum via e-mail (AUP is
not entirely clear on that use), but unless you're on CIX you can't
get to Quantum's on-line catalog and other materials here.
And I know from experience, helping sites get hooked up and get AUP
approval, that the tendency is to not approve commercial-ish use
although in at least one case it was somewhat due to their own
experience and knowledge about how to present themselves.
In that specific case I have in mind, NOT being hooked up to the net
was causing double-billing to the government, essentially, as remote
sites at Universities and other govt services were accessing them
through the public dial network, sites which were certainly on the
NSFnet (MIT was one.)
Now, that was just a plain mistake and I helped fix it, no one was at
fault particularly, they just didn't explain themselves well and I had
to interview them to discover this and help them re-write a proposal.
But it's a great example of the atmosphere involved, they were very
frustrated and were fairly sure they should have been approved. And
they were right, they just didn't know how to draw out the salient
points (I thought the double-billing was a pretty good point.)
Another vendor, who I believe wouldn't want me to go into details, is
right now setting up shop here to provide information services very
relevant to the NSFnet's mission, and will also be restricted by AUP.
Others have called me to talk about possibilities and the
conversations ran to just what Mitch described, they find it
discouraging, from a business perspective, if they consider academia
and research to be a major part of their audience.
As someone who lives with the realities rather than the hypothetical
possibilities I can assure everyone it presents a very real obstacle.
It's not fatal as we're offering more access, via CIX, than anyone has
in history to the general public, but it sure wastes my time just
explaining the situation a few times per day (I'd be glad to start
forwarding the e-mail to this list, I'd bet you'll be begging me to
stop after only a few days.) And I know it has discouraged people, and
limited possibilities.
I'm not certain what the right answer is, don't take this as a
condemnation, I do understand the complexities, very much so.
We've built this highway, but imposed these restrictions on who can
use the highways, only automotive engineers, so the car doesn't look
awfully useful. Imagine if federal highways were "no commercial use"
and you were in the trucking industry...?
The worst part is that we'll never get support from those excluded,
right? Food for thought. Maybe that's why we have a one-lane highway,
no trucking lobby.
-Barry Shein
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