Four examples of what Liz Figueroa's anti-Google bill would do [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

One more from Anonymous: "It would prohibit the searching of webmail, 
which requires examination of contents."

-Declan


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] What would Liz Figueroa's anti-Google bill 
really do?      [priv]
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 12:36:35 -0400
From: David Sklar <sklar () sklar com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
References: <40891AA2.7040104 () well com>

> Is there anything I'm missing?

Depends on how broad/narrow you want to read "review,
examine, or otherwise evaluate the content of".

Here are some more:

* Reading X-Mailing-List type headers to manage automatic mailing list
subscription/unsubscription information?

* Encoding HTML entities in text/plain message bodies so that they don't
  show up as HTML in the browser? Maybe that's "managing ... other
malicious programs" (i.e. to prevent some JavaScript XSS attack), maybe not.

* Turning ":)" in an IM into a smiley graphic?

I'm sure others can come up with plenty of other examples, too.

David


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] What would Liz Figueroa's anti-Google bill 
really do? [priv]
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 13:15:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Chris Beck <chris.beck () pacanukeha net>
To: <declan () well com>
References: <40891AA2.7040104 () well com>

One named Declan McCullagh was heard tp whisper
> >  (b) This section does not prevent a provider of e-mail or instant
> > messaging services to California customers from filtering unsolicited

Well, one could argue that it doesn't allow them to filter opt-out spam ...
which could then get tricky.

Perhaps it wouldn't allow filtering rules to put messages in their own
folders

What would be allowed in the case of a mailing list mail sent by someone
from a gmail address?


On a related note, after reading Brad's piece I filed 2 bugs with gmail:
1) The login is not https!
2) They aren't using TLS for SMTP delivery
-- 
Chris Beck
"Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit." - Cicero



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] What would Liz Figueroa's anti-Google bill 
really do? [priv]
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 10:21:51 -0700
From: Ted Cabeen <secabeen () pobox com>
Organization: Impulse Internet Services
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
References: <40891AA2.7040104 () well com>

Declan McCullagh <declan () well com> writes:

> 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?

The biggest thing that I notice is that there isn't an exception for
maintenance or troubleshooting.  If we have a message that's crashing
our MTA every time it tries to get delivered, we may need to look at
that message to figure out why it's causing problems.  The ECPA has an
exception for accessing mail content when it is "a necessary incident
to the rendition" of the service.  A similar exception should be
present in this bill.

Also, there isn't an exception for backups, although I don't know if
one is explicitly necessary.

--Ted
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