[8344] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Some Conclusions - ANS-DIGEX
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Tansin A. Darcos & Company)
Mon Nov 15 16:45:58 1993
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 16:33:24 -0500 (EST)
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
Reply-To: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" <0005066432@mcimail.com>
To: Randy Windell <curious@hebron.connected.com>,
>From: Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
-----
> My Complaint: Its like that of many others... ANS gets Federal
> monies - A Win-Win situation. They setup a group of companies like
> Digital Express and by making such deals find themselves in the
> process of predatory pricing.
>
> In short, the whole thing smells of anti-trust. Who knows I am not
> a lawyer. Maybe its time to hide the paper trail, the IBM CE's, the
> MCI tech's and others that attempt to construct these sort of
> deals. If I worked for ANS I wonder how I would feel, if I knew
> management was giving away the farm.
Let me stipulate for a moment that ANS is supplying Digital Express with
service and refusing to do so for other companies. Not that I necessarily
have any evidence one way or the other, it still doesn't mean that there
is necessarily anything sinister or unusual.
"Antitrust" implies a conspiracy to reduce competition. Unless it can be
claimed that Digex is conspiring with ANS to drive other Internet Providers
out of business or ANS is conspirong with Digex to drive other backbone
connectors out of business, I don't think the term is applicable. If,
as I understand it, ANS is *not* a common carrier, then it can choose to
not supply someone or supply someone if it wants to, as long as the reason
is not for a prohibited class of refusal, e.g. if it refused to sell a
connection to a company because it was negro owned, that would be illegal.
If it simply chooses not to sell a connection to someone, in the absence
of common carrier status and in the absence of a prohibited discrimination,
it is not illegal.
For example, if you have red hair, and they won't sell to people with red
hair, that's not prohibited. Or they won't sell to people with first
names that have "infamous" connotations (the name 'Randy' has a sexual
connotation.) Or any half-baked reason at all. In the absence of being a
common carrier, it's not illegal to do so.
> Last: Again Doug, if you got a great deal like this, it sure was sweat.
That, Sir, *is* true. Doug has indicated that he sweated out the details
and costs very carefully. :)
---
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Paul Robinson - TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
-----
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