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What would Liz Figueroa's anti-Google bill really do? [priv]


From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 09:31:14 -0400

State Sen. Liz Figueroa has finally introduced her anti-Google bill designed to block Gmail:
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5198082.html?tag=nefd.top

Excerpt from bill:
ftp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1801-1850/sb_1822_bill_20040420_amended_sen.html
 The provider may review,
examine, or otherwise evaluate the content of incoming e-mail or
instant messages only from another subscriber to the same service and
only when that subscriber has consented to the procedure.
 (b) This section does not prevent a provider of e-mail or instant
messaging services to California customers from filtering unsolicited
e-mail for removing spam or for managing computer viruses or other
malicious programs.

Figueroa's office admitted the bill would make it illegal for a California company to offer a "family friendly" email service that filtered dirty jokes into their own folder, for instance. It would also prohibit reviewing incoming messages to make clickable hyperlinks out of text phrases like "www.mccullagh.org." It might ban the practice of discarding messages with attachments beyond a certain size limit.

Is there anything I'm missing?

-Declan
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