[2644] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Perot and AUP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brad Templeton)
Wed Apr 1 16:15:54 1992
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9203240020.AA03827@netcom.netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 92 12:00:25 PST
From: brad@looking.clarinet.com (Brad Templeton)
There is a distinction between action on USENET and action on the internet.
USENET exists far beyond the internet, and is not subject to its rules.
The people subject to any AUP are the sites who have agreed to an AUP,
and were required to follow that AUP in setting up their USENET feeds
using NNTP over AUP-governed networks.
The presumption here is that the site decided that it wanted a USENET
feed for AUP approved purposes -- support of research and education.
Inherent in that decision is that a USENET feed is not controllable. You
can't stop messages that violate the AUP and which are of little use to
you in support of R&E from coming in along with the messages that you
do want -- and which indeed are one of the major purposes of the network
in may people's eyes.
Because of that inability to filter, it means that one can only judge
if the feed, *taken as a whole* satisfies the AUP. In many cases, it does.
Under no circumstances to joe users off the internet who post commercial
messages violate the AUP. They may not know it exists, and they are
certainly not responsible for the rules of all the links out there.
It's like suggesting that on an international net, if one country has a law
against a certain type of posting and another doesn't, people in the latter
country somehow have to be bound by the laws of the most restrictive
country.
