Statements against new.net?

Thu Mar 15 16:47:37 UTC 2001

On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 06:55:26PM -0600, Edward S. Marshall wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Mar 14, 2001 at 12:30:19PM -0500, David Charlap wrote:
> > BUT if representatives from a dozen or a hundred ISPs meet together and
> > choose to blackhole new.net for the explicit purpose of running them out
> > of business, and then do so, they would be in violation of US anti-trust
> > laws.
> 
> You mean, like the owners and operators of numerous core US networks
> getting together on an archived mailing list like this one, and openly
> discussing the idea of putting new.net out of business by various means
> (blackholing them, legally pressuring them, etc)?
> 
> You're right, that might constitute violation of anti-trust law. :-) But
> what do I know? I'm no lawyer.

I'm no lawyer either, but it seems that intent is a pretty hard case to 
make. I would think that network operators could take a couple of different
paths to blackholing new.net:
1) Looking at the plan and realizing that it is going to increase their
support costs with no increase in profits, therefore as a defensive 
measure and to protect their own resources, an ISP chooses to blackhole
new.net

2) Waiting until support calls start to come in wrt to problems that
the new.net plugin/alternate roots/whatever creates, and then blackholing
new.net.

(option #1 seems more preferable, just to avoid the customer who says
"well it was working last week, how come it doesn't work now?" issues.)

Neither of these options says anything at all about intent to run them
out of business, and says much about intent to keep the isp in business.

-ron