Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.

http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5553212.html

A federal appeals court has ruled that EarthLink was within its rights 
to disconnect a customer who it incorrectly believed to be spamming.

EarthLink pulled the plug on independent film producer Peter Hall's 
account in August 1997 after receiving a report from UUNet, its network 
provider, that Hall was sending out bulk junk e-mail. Realizing its 
mistake about a week later, EarthLink offered a public retraction and 
forwarded Hall about 16 e-mail messages that had accumulated in his 
account during that time.

It's unclear what happened next--each side accuses the other of being 
unwilling to reconnect the account--but EarthLink ended up accepting 
e-mail messages to Hall's account and quietly storing them in a mail 
spool rather than bouncing them as undeliverable. Hall sued EarthLink 
for $2 million in July 1998, charging that the initial disconnection was 
unlawful, and that the missed e-mail resulted in his low-budget film, 
"Delinquent," becoming a flop.

[...remainder snipped...]

Posted by Declan McCullagh on Jan 27, 2005

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The Politech general information pages and photographs are copyrighted by Declan McCullagh. Original posts distributed to the mailing list are licensed under a Creative Commons License.