>>>>> "D" == Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
D> This conversation has become tiresome.
D> At 11:49 AM 2/20/2002 -0500, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:
>> So, to summarize then, you have _no_ objections to my secretly
>> rifling through my neighbour's post _providing_ I then
>> hand-deliver his post for free?
D> If the neighbor agreed to it, I have no objection.
Ok. I know where you stand. Please stand far from my mail.
"Mr Jones, would you like me to fetch your mail for you?"
"Oh, yes please"
and that gives me license to secretly open, inspect and reseal it?
I'm glad I don't live you your country; in mine, that is illegal. My
point is that this same scenario be illegal with respect to email too.
D> I strongly suspect what canada.com does is permitted by their
D> TOS.
You find it, and I will shut TF up:
Canada.com privacy policy: http://www.canada.com/aboutus/privacypolicy.html
"The canada.com Network collects personally identifying
information about you only when you specifically and
knowingly provide it to us."
... and implicitly, using this service satisfies this
condition?
Canada.com TOS: http://www.canada.com/aboutus/termsofservice.html
D> You have not shown otherwise. If you don't like it, get a
D> real account somewhere else.
This is not the point, now, is it. I have, I believe, provided you
with the bits; you now have the TOS and Privacy Policy, and I have
read them both but can find no statement that says "we reserve the
right to read your emails without your knowledge and to take action
based on the contents of your emails. we reserve the right to censor
your emails should someone try to send you materials _we_ decide are
unacceptable."
You find those two statements, or statements to that effect, and I
will be quite happy to admit I have no case. As I stated before, my
_real_ mail host did try these filters, and when I asked for them to
be removed, they did so cheerfully and within an hour. Canada.com has
not responded to my emails, and there is no profile option to opt
out of this censorship service, nor any mention that this censorship
even occurs.
We come down to a question that arose early in the 90's: Is disrupting
internet a crime? In 1988 it was not, but by 1996 it was a serious
crime because people came to rely on Internet for life-critical
services. My point is that _email_ can be at least as and perhaps
more life-critical than snail-mail, and should be granted the same
basic protections.
If Mr Jones _requests_ that I scrap any letters from his sister, then
that is _his_ decision, not mine.
--
Gary Lawrence Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> TeleDynamics Communications Inc
Business Innovations Through Open Source Systems: http://www.teledyn.com
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)
