Re: truth in advertising for ISPs

["Ben Holland" <user=122@nabble.blu.org>]

 I have a very strong feeling the first thing you need to really pass is a 
law enabling ISPs to not be sued for what they pass over their pipes, I am 
not really sure if this has already been done but I have heard humors about 
the possibility of companies like viacom and sony to be able to sue comcast 
for allowing downloads of copyrighted material (didn't this spark the whole 
net neutrality thing?). If they can successfully get away with that... well 
lets just hope they can't. ~ben 



On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:31:00, John Chambers <[hidden email]> wrote: 

> Michael Tiernan wrote: 
> | I'm reminded of this situation because if we did pursue the argument 
> | that comcast isn't an "ISP" they could beat the rap by changing their 
> | designation to "IAP" (Internet Access Provider) which would derail any 
> | attempts we could make in beating their random acts of rule making. 
> 
> Ah, but they'd still be claiming to provide "Internet". If that means 
> anything  at  all,  it  should mean that they provide the data packet 
> capabilities defined in the RFCs.  They might also  provide  services 
> like SMTP, NNTP, etc, which are defined in RFCs. But providing things 
> like port blocking and killing of  connections  via  faked  "goodbye" 
> packets isn't providing "Internet" anything; it's preventing Internet 
> access.  This should be considered proof of deceptive  labelling  and 
> consumer fraud. 
> 
> | I'd still like to be able to "choose" who I plug into from home but I 
> | don't have any choices. (Without remortgaging the house.) 
> 
> There's an old publisher's saying that Freedom of the  Press  belongs 
> to him who owns and controls a printing press. Similarly, Free Speech 
> belongs to whoever controls the means of communication.  If you and I 
> want  to exchange data, and the ISP can legally block our attempts at 
> communication, we don't havee free speech at all; we have controlled, 
> censored and monitored speech. 
> 
> It was decided many decades ago that the phone companies  don't  have 
> the  right  to monitor, record, or edit phone conversations without a 
> court warrant.  (Not that they don't do it anyway,  of  course.   ;-) 
> Maybe eventually this will be extended to Internet communication. But 
> we do seem to have a problem that, when a computer gets  involved  in 
> something,  all  legal  precedent  is  thrown  out  and  we  have  to 
> reestablish all the laws from scratch. 
> 
> 
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