Spam control again

[sethg at ropine.com (Seth Gordon)]

On Wed, 2003-07-16 at 12:58, Derek Martin wrote:
> 
> > (2) If a commercial email message passes through an American ISP, that
> > ISP must warrant that the sender is complying with point (1).  If the
> > sender cannot be located, or if the sender loses a lawsuit to recover
> > damages but does not pay, then the ISP is liable.
> 
> This will shut down most ISPs, because it will place an undue burden
> upon them.  This is punishing the innocent for someone else's sins,
> something I believe should never be done (even though it is daily in
> so many ways).

This is the kind of burden that liability insurance is designed to
handle.

> > Now, if this law were passed, then every American ISP that has
> > interconnect agreements with foreign ISPs would tell their partners:
> > "Post a bond so we're insured against spam-related damages coming from
> > your network, or we're going to block all incoming port 25 traffic from
> > you."
> 
> This isn't witout merit, but I balked at myself making such a
> suggestion, because too many Americans have legitimate business with
> people in Asia, and blocking all the Asian ISPs (which is essentially
> what would have to happen) would be too disruptive to our own
> legitimate users, as well as those in Asia.  This is, again, punishing
> the innocent for the sins of someone else.

If Asian ISPs can't afford to comply, then instead of cutting them off
entirely, American ISPs could offer their customers a choice.  In their
sign-up form, they could say:

Most Internet service providers in countries X, Y, and Z do not have
adequate procedures for blocking spam.  If you accept messages from
those providers, we cannot prevent spam from reaching you.  Which would
you prefer?

[ ] Do not let anyone from those ISPs send me email

[ ] Send me all email from those ISPs, even if it's spam

-- 
"[A]s a quick survey of the current workplace will painfully reveal,
knowledge of Computer Science is not a prerequisite for being a
programmer,
much like knowledge of automobile engineering is not necessary to become
an
assembler at GM."  --Will Hartung
// seth gordon // sethg at ropine.com // http://ropine.com/sethg/cv.html //