From: "Josh M. Osborne" <stripes@va.pubnix.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 95 05:58:29 PDT
To: Deranged Mutant <rrothenb@ic.sunysb.edu>
Subject: Re: ECPA (Was: University logging mail to anon.penet.fi)
In-Reply-To: <199509070542.BAA23214@libws4.ic.sunysb.edu>
Message-ID: <IAA25764.199509071255@garotte.va.pubnix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In message <199509070542.BAA23214@libws4.ic.sunysb.edu>, Deranged Mutant writes
[...]
>I've heard some nasty stories about boards and a couple of I-Net providers
>who charge for access but reserve the right to throw someone off the system
>without refund (it's often in the terms of many account applications) for
>various no-nos.

Alot do more or less that, but if you were an Internet Service
Provider how would you deal with it?  For example what if a customer
started sending obscene material to people who didn't want it, and
the recipents started to complain to you, or the goverment?

If you (the ISP) don't have a service agreement that says you can
disconnect the customer in that case you are in danger of getting
sued by them if you cut them off.  If you don't cut them off you
are in danger of getting sued or shut down by the goverment.

Even if we were in a more libertarian society you run the risk of
being boycotted by potential customers (of corse the analagy breaks
down somewhat, in a very libertarian society oyu might be able to
run a profatable ISP selling to the very nich market of people who
want to threten, harass, or generally make a nuicence of themselves).

As a result are unlikely to find an ISP that doesn't have a set of no-no's.
(and if you do they may not be in bisness for long)  The best I think
you can do is find an ISP that publishes their list of no-no's (like
the one I work for UUNET - see any file in ftp://ftp.uu.net/uunet-info
with "svc" in it's name and skip down to "AlterNet Terms and Conditions"),
and seems to have a reasonable set of them, and last but not least make
sure that they do at least refund any payment for service not recieved.

For example UUNET (which I work for - but this is mostly irrelivant as
this is a statment of the facts, not an oponion) publishes their
terms and conditions in ftp://ftp.uu.net/uunet-info (look at any file
with "svc" in it's name and skip down to "AlterNet Terms and Conditions").
As for reasonability I'll leave that up to you to decide.
-- 
And no, I'm not speaking for UUNET Technologies, or anyone but myself.