Policies affecting the Internet as a whole - Hitting where it hurts

Fri Dec 27 19:21:59 UTC 1996

On Fri, 27 Dec 1996, Robert A. Pickering Jr. wrote:

> on (so they can respond), and how they can get off.  AOL had none of this
> in place.  My helpdesk just started to get flooded with calls of people
> who couldn't mail family members at AOL.  Also, AOL was silently removing
> the messages.  No bounces, just deletes.  So, we had no way of knowing
> they were doing it, the mail just didn't show up.

You and your users should lay charges against AOL. They were in violation
of the ECPA which forbids them from deleting email like that the same way
the laws forbid a postal carrier from burning letters they don't want to
deliver.

And if anyone else is thinking of taking similar action to block email,
make sure you either filter port 25 in the router or you bounce back all 
the email so that the sending party knows the mail is not going to be
delivered. Once you accept an email message you have a legal obligation to
deliver it to the addressee.

Michael Dillon                   -               Internet & ISP Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com