FC: Weekly column: Lawsuit could set anti-spam rules for ISPs

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1019814.html

Setting the rules for ISPs and spammers
By Declan McCullagh
June 23, 2003, 4:00 AM PT

   Peter Hall's troubles with spam began the week of Aug. 5, 1997, when
   the New York-based independent film producer learned that his
   EarthLink account had been shut off without warning.

   EarthLink, a leading Internet service provider (ISP), had
   concluded--incorrectly, it turns out--that Hall was a spammer. The
   company terminated Hall's e-mail account but chose not to bounce or
   forward his e-mail messages. It instead quietly stored them in a mail
   spool. Anyone sending Hall e-mail likely concluded that the message
   had gone through.

   This week, a federal judge in New York is scheduled to hear arguments
   in a $2 million lawsuit that Hall filed against EarthLink a year
   later. It claims that EarthLink violated the law and that the missed
   e-mail resulted in his low-budget film "Delinquent" becoming a flop.
   (The film, which described a tortured teen's conflict with his abusive
   father, did manage to score a favorable review from The Village Voice,
   which dubbed it "raw, restless, contemplative and haunting."

   The lawsuit is worth watching for three reasons. First, it may address
   whether oft-controversial antispam blacklists like the Mail Abuse
   Prevention System (MAPS) are legal or not.

   Second, it looks at what happens when an ISP fails to neither deliver
   nor bounce incoming e-mail. Last year, a Canadian woman named Nancy
   Carter sued her ISP for $110,000 in damages after it held her mail
   because of unpaid bills. A relatively new California law requires
   e-mail service providers to give a 30-day notice before terminating
   accounts. No U.S. court case decision appears to have addressed this
   practice, which critics say is tantamount to holding e-mail hostage.

   Third, it tries to establish the novel--and worrisome--legal principle
   that ISPs fall into a near-archaic "public interest" category that
   would prohibit them from giving the boot to subscribers whom they
   honestly believe to be spamming.

   [...]




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