FC: More on FCC's Farber tells ISPs not to do discount tracking plan

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 13:45:53 -0400
To: declan () well com, politech () vorlon mit edu
From: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Re: FC: FCC's Farber warns of regulation if ISPs do discount 
tracking plan
Cc: info () predictivenetworks com, lauren () vortex com, farber () cis upenn edu

Declan, for the record, if you read the statement I made carefully or even 
casually I never said the FCC will regulate  anything in this space (unless 
the congress demands it). What I did say is continued steps down such paths 
will end up with Governments imposing regulation and with the citizens 
demanding it. The stream that goes from the subscriber of an ISP has a lot 
more in it than web traffic. There may indeed be voice (IP Telephony) email 
etc. What assurance do we have that opt in works in this or any case. If a 
single ISP controls my access to the net via my cable , for example, the 
comment of "just say no and find another isp" may be very very difficult.

For the record, I am not accusing Predictivenetworks of any miss-behavior. 
I do caution that as the industry starts down this slippery path they 
understand that there are limits and that reaching those limits may not be 
at all heathy for our industry.

Dave (as a private citizen which by the way is what I speak as in all my IP 
mailings)

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My response:

Dave correctly points out that he warned not of FCC but "government 
regulation." (http://www.politechbot.com/p-01099.html)

My intent was to say that the FCC would be the agency responsible for 
carrying out such regulation if the Feds decided to do it. Whether the FCC 
has the statutory authority to enact such rules without action by Congress 
is a question for another day. :)

-Declan

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Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2000 14:39:33 -0400
To: declan () well com
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <director () embassy org>
Cc: info () predictivenetworks com, lauren () vortex com, farber () cis upenn edu

At 10:44 AM 04/21/2000 -0400, Declan McCullagh (posting Dave Farber's 
comments) wrote:

> If a similar idea was tried on the telephone infrastructure, I believe you 
> would get hauled off to jail for illegal wiretap.

Zing!  Ran that strawman right through the heart...

One presumes that the FCC perceives a difference between telephony and 
Internet infrastructure; one could also argue that the latter *ought* to 
receive some modicum of regulation, if only to better clarify liabilities 
(the recent denial-of-service attacks, alleged to Mafiaboy, ought to wake 
us up to the fact that the Net is built on a foundation of unknown 
authoritity, which guarantees lots of work for lawyers, but a less than 
healthy basis for doing business).

I'm pretty catholic on the whole idea behind Predictive's business... it 
certainly could suffer the same sort of backlash as befell Lotus 
Marketplace Household, but, on the other hand, who am I to tell you you 
can't barter your own privacy?

Ross

_____________________________________________________________________
Ross Stapleton-Gray                     TeleDiplomacy, Inc.
director () embassy org                    2503 Columbia Pike, Suite 118
                                        Arlington VA 22204
http://www.telediplomacy.com           +1 703 685-5197 / 5257 fax

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