The original intent of Net Neutrality laws had nothing to do with
blocking or not on random ports. It had to do with giving an unfair
advantage to the provider in question to sell competing services.
Much like anti-trust legislation doesn't stop a company from cornering
a market, just stops them from using that Market Power to create
artificial advantages in other market segments to the detriment of the
public.
Putting this into a hypothetical example: If your access to iTunes,
NetFlix, Amazon, etc. is filtered / rate limited / whatever, but you
can order On-Demand from the company who owns the same piece of <fiber|
copper> which delivers the Internet, especially if that is the only
broadband connection you can buy because of monopoly / duopoly
protection, then this is deemed "unfair". Anti-net-neutrality people
spin this into "but suppose I want to charge extra for premium access
to YouTube?" A != B, their argument does not address the underlying
point of the rule. Do not be fooled by such spin.
Back to the original question, no provider is blocking port 25 to
force you to buy their mail services - they usually give it out for
free with a connection! Add in the "reasonable network management /
preventing abuse / best common practices" argument, which are backed
up with 3rd party documents, and I don't think anyone rational would
call this a violation of Network Neutrality.
The problem is, not everyone is rational, and no law is written
perfectly. Some spammer _will_ file a lawsuit claiming their spam is
CAN-SPAM compliant, therefore legal, and the provider cannot block
them. This will use legal resource, and may even result in un-
blocking while a judge who knows what the box on his secretary's desk
where his "e-mail" (huh?) gets printed is found. And that could take
a while.
Would that life were perfect. But it is not, so we muddle through as
best we can. And I think we can do better than allowing a gov't
sponsored monopoly use that monopoly to decide what things we can and
cannot do based on what will raise their profit margin.
One other personal comment: I believe if you paid for a resource, you
should be allowed to dictate its use, even to your customers (as long
as it is clear when they paid what the rules are). That said, there
are no cable or DSL providers in the US who "paid" 100% for their
resources, no matter what the executives at these companies think.
This is not opinion, this is fact.
OTOH: Companies who set up WiMAX or satellite or other technologies
which do not depend on gov't grants, tax relief, right-of-way,
monopoly protection, etc. should be allowed to do as they please.
Yes, this includes filtering iTunes so you buy their movie streaming
service. Of course, I have no idea if such a company exists, but it
certainly is not impossible to set one up. I just don't know if it
can make any money against companies that are funded by, granted
exclusive rights by, or are helped in other ways by the gov't. I fear
the answer is "no way in hell".
All of this is IMHO, of course.
--
TTFN,
patrick
On Oct 23, 2009, at 7:33 PM, James R. Cutler wrote:
No, blocking a port does not restrict a customers use of the network
any more than one way streets restrict access to downtown stores. It
just forces certain traffic directions in a bicycle/motorcycle/car/
van/truck neutral manner. Carry anything you want. Others laws
restrict incendiary content.
On Oct 23, 2009, at 6:15 PM, Dan White wrote:
On 23/10/09 17:58 -0400, James R. Cutler wrote:
Blocking the well known port 25 does not block sending of mail. Or
the
message content.
It does block incoming SMTP traffic on that well known port.
I think the relevant neutrality principle is that traffic is not
blocked
by content.
My personal definition doesn't quite gel with that. You're deciding
for the
customer how they can use their connection, before you have any
evidence of
nefarious activity.
Would you consider restricting a customer's outgoing port 25
traffic to a
specific mail server a step over the net neutrality line?
--
Dan White
James R. Cutler
james.cut...@consultant.com
