Nxdomain redirect revenue

Tue Sep 27 20:45:22 UTC 2011

On 27/09/2011 19:31, John Levine wrote:
> For case law confirming that similar language in the Stored
> Communication Act doesn't apply to data on your own equipment, see the
> recently dismissed cases of Holomaxx vs. Microsoft and Holomaxx
> vs. Yahoo.

In Europe, things are slightly different.  Traffic snooping is considered
to be a breach of consumer data protection directives and is treated
accordingly.  One of the more interesting cases was BT + Phorm:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm#European_Commission_case_against_UK_over_Phorm

While the case never went to court, all parties backed down and there
hasn't been a similar case since then.

There is another aspect to this: european IP service providers can claim
"mere conduit" status (similar to US "common carrier") under the terms of
the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC (as transcribed into local
legislation), provided during the process of transmission they do "not
select or modify the information contained in the transmission".  It would
seem possible that changing DNS packets in transit could come under the
scope of "select or modify", thereby leaving the IP service provider liable
for the information transmitted.  This can act as a deterrent to service
providers who feel that modifying data in-flight is a good idea.

Nick