[2631] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The AUP, Common Sense, and the Emperor's Clothes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ken Laws)
Tue Mar 24 14:26:59 1992
Date: Tue 24 Mar 92 11:26:33-PST
From: Ken Laws <LAWS@ai.sri.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9203232058.AA00975@tmn.com>
> From Gordon Cook:
> Those companies that hop on the network and use it would do so
> presumably because they had REAL business to conduct with the R&E
> community.
Yes and no. I agree that companies are not eager to put their
spreadsheets out on the net, although encryption technology can
make this feasible. In the realm of enterprise computing, the most
likely uses of the internet are 1) replacing snail-mail business
correspondence, and 2) replacing phoned-in exchanges between field
personnel and central offices. [I'm no authority, but these seem
reasonable.] Both are Good Things, and we shouldn't begrudge whatever
bandwidth they consume.
My objection to your R&E comment is that it's only true for the
short term. (Very short, given the internet's exponential growth.)
If you remove the AUP, the Internet effectively ceases to exist.
We then have the small-i internet, with no special status for
R&E customers. The number of R&E-related messages will be small
and nearly constant, whereas the number of non-R&E groups on the
net will explode. Once there's a mass audience, advertising and
political/religious/charitable solicitations will dominate net
traffic. (If Clinton were trailing by 1% on election eve, how many
net messages would his campaign be interested in posting?) Companies
will use the net as they now use the mail and phone services, and
reaching R&E customers won't be a consideration. It's only a
consideration now because 1) the AUP makes R&E the only game in
town, and 2) a side effect of the AUP is that there's very little
on the net except R&E customers and their suppliers or associates.
I'm not saying that the AUP should be kept. (I'm grateful to Steve
for permitting my own net activity under the AUP. I don't mean to
use the AUP to keep out potential competitors.) I just think that
we should note that some kind of AUP will be needed when the net
changes character. If it's not provided by policy, it will be
provided by law -- just as laws are now in place to protect people
from automated phone sales pitches. We must police ourselves or
Congress will appoint someone to police us. I can't imagine that
anarchy will long prevail. Announcing that there is no AUP is the
same as announcing that all uses are permissible (unless covered
by interstate communications regulations), and people can be pretty
creative when anonymity is easy to achieve and the cost of flooding
the net is near zero.
-- Ken
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