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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 culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
********* 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) ********* 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 ********* 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 *********** -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------