RE: [IMail Forum] copyall fee?

[Dan Horne]

I believe the issue here is the difference between copying the email and "archiving" the email.  If we are archiving a customers' email, then we are responsible for that archive.  If, however, we are simply "copying" the email to another mailbox for the customer to download, then the customer is responsible for maintaining the archive once it is downloaded.  You said Dave's comparison was not valid, but neither is your court case comparison.  This question has nothing to do with delivery, notification or blacklisting.  However, as a CYA, if you are NOT "archiving" your customers' emails but are only copying them, you should probably get some form of written (even an email) correspondence in which they state that they are aware that you do not store their emails for any period of time, but only forward them all to a mailbox which they are responsible for maintaining. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Wolf Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 8:02 PM To: IMail_Forum@list.ipswitch.com Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] copyall fee? Dave, your comparison to the US Postal Service is not valid.  The US Postal Service is afforded protection by law, you are not.  If you run a mail server and sell that service to a customer you have responsibility well beyond that of the US Postal Service.  You are responsible to maintain a system that provides mail service to the "reasonable expectations of a reasonable customer".  That means that your customers can expect that any valid messages sent to or by them will be delivered by your system.  Your liability far exceeds any fees you may charge, and any disclaimers are probably worthless.    I followed the case of a mid-sized ISP in my state that was sued by customer (who happened to be an attorney) for non-delivery, and non-notification of email messages.  I sat and listened in the court for most of a week.  The ISP was on several black lists due mostly to a misconfiguration on their part.  The customers messages were not delivered, and the ISP failed to notify the customer that their mail server was "blacklisted", and the ISP failed to correct the misconfiguration even when they became aware of the issue.  The attorney showed about $125,000.00 in damages.  The ISP had a TOS posted on their web page, but they had no signed contract so the judge ignored the TOS which apparently covered the ISP.  The verdict?  The attorney won $125,000 in actual damages, $32,000 in legal and court costs, and $50,000 in punitive damages.  This was in a state court and cited state law (which vary considerably), but it seemed that the attorney would have been in a better position in federal court.  He cited many CFR's that the judge didn't want to hear.  This case came down to the issue that if you hold yourself out as expert enough to run a mail server and sell the service you had better be expert enough to do it right.   As for the mail archive issue.  If you tell a customer you are archiving their messages you had better use all reasonable care and caution to make sure you do exactly that.  That would mean regular backups, and off site storage.  Doesn't matter if you're being paid for it or not... I assure you that you are responsible.   We provide a monthly mail archive service for one customer.  We charge $35 per month for that service.  We burn a CD with a .pst file on it monthly and send it to them with their bill.   We've made it clear to this customer, and all other customers, that we do not maintain an archive of files.   -Joe     ----- Original Message ----- From: Dave Riddle To: IMail_Forum@list.ipswitch.com Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2005 12:53 AM Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] copyall fee? We are not responsible for their email anymore than the US Postal Service is for a lost letter, Christmas card or package and unlike the Post Office or FedEx/UPS we don't offer insured delivery or even a guarantee that the mail will be delivered.  We provide a place for mail to be sent to and they are responsible for picking it up.  That applies to personal or business email accounts and is the same for the cache of emails that we accumulate for them of all the email sent to and from their business.  They are responsible for downloading and storing that mail.  We are simply making it easier for them by accumulating ALL that mail into a single mailbox so that they can archive it without having to deal with multiple MBX or PST files on all their user systems. Now if we were doing what you SEEM to be saying which is to provide off-site storage for that archive on an ongoing basis then yes we would charge for that since in addition to the assumed responsibility for securing and maintaining the archive there would be the issues of storage cost either on disc, tape whatever. One client that we do this for pulls the mail using Eudora and then uses the filters in Eudora to separate the mail into individual mail folders by user and then into subfolders based on sent/received. At 08:31 PM 8/26/2005, you wrote: Well, I just know if we're going to be responsible for something that means we can be held responsible as well. Kevin Bilbee wrote: We do not keep the emails. We use rules to place the messages in a box for them to download. We do not store or archive the messages for them beyone what is done for any other mail account.   A little parinoid are we!!!!!       Kevin Bilbee -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Matrosity Tech Support Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 4:36 PM To: IMail_Forum@list.ipswitch.com Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] copyall fee? so when the FCC calls about emails and your client turns to you for them you're ok with value add. God help your business when they sue you for not having the emails. Kevin Bilbee wrote: We think this is a feature we can add that will make our customers happy that we offer it and is just another feather in our cap. We do not like to nickel and dime our customers.       Kevin Bilbee -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Matrosity Tech Support Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 3:28 PM To: IMail_Forum@list.ipswitch.com Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] copyall fee? so you take ownership and responsibility for their email as a value add? Dave Riddle wrote: We don't charge for this At 02:47 PM 8/26/2005, you wrote: everyone seems to be ignoring the question of cost for providing this? Kevin Bilbee wrote: Caopy all will caopy all mail in the IP even virtual domains you will need to setup a rules on the copy all account to sort the messages by domains. We use it for backup purposes for our clients. Kevin Bilbee   -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Matrosity Tech Support Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 8:36 AM To: IMail_Forum@list.ipswitch.com Subject: [IMail Forum] copyall fee? What are you guys charging (if anything) to customers for a copyall service? It appears you can really only do this for one domain as well. Bill To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/     To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/   To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/ To Unsubscribe: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html List Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/imail_forum%40list.ipswitch.com/ Knowledge Base/FAQ: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/IMail/