Email Portability Approved by Knesset Committee

Tue Feb 23 07:35:58 UTC 2010


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Barry Shein [mailto:bzs at world.std.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 7:55 AM
> To: John Levine
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: Email Portability Approved by Knesset Committee
> 
> 
>  > >My initial reaction: Does the law in any way imply this mail
> address
>  > >has to be provided for free?
>  >
>  > If you had spent 10 seconds with Google Translate on the URL in
> Gadi's
>  > message, you'd already know.
> 
> (gosh that only took 12 hours to suggest)
> 
> Obviously we're discussing a legal and regulatory system most of us
> here are unfamiliar with, there may be other considerations.
> 
> But in the USofA a law like this would raise some serious trademark
> issues.
> 
> When you manage a valuable trademark your lawyer lectures you about
> how a trademark has to represent a particular product of a particular
> quality or else a court can deem it invalid or even fraudulent.
> 
> There are only two ways this sort of law is likely to be implemented:
> 
>   a) The original ISP continues to provide email for that address.
> 
>   b) Some other ISP provides that service.
> 
> I suppose a third way, via a third party, is possible but I don't
> think that defuses the trademark issue.
> 
> The exact mechanics are a different discussion.
> 
> Since the first ISP is no longer being paid the practical solution
> seems to be (b), the original ISP cooperates and hands over service to
> the new provider somehow.
> 
> But how can the original ISP be assured that email going out under
> what appears to be their mark (consider xxx at AOL.COM or xxx at MSN.COM)
> represents their product in any way the law requires?
> 
And now think about it with SPF records (and checks for SPF records). All
outgoing mail should also go via the OLD provider. Including domainnames
(for email) would be the solution for this. In other cases only (a) seems to
be available. Maybe a payment between the old and new provider is the
solution for it. How to do this if the old provider is stopping? It is a
realistic possibility that they stop.
> It would be a conflict and a potential dilution of one's mark.
> 
> Particularly, as others have suggested, if that product implies
> availability, spam filtering, support, storage, recovery in the event
> of lost storage, TOS, etc.
Just mention that this law is above the other law regarding Trademarks and
you will need to follow this law. What if a domain get listed because a new
provider doesn't use a spam filter on outgoing messages, how to get delisted
for the old provider? Some lists might be based on the from header in
emails.
> 
> In contrast, a phone number has no such trademark implications for the
> provider, one generally doesn't say "oh, 555-555-1234, an AT&T phone
> number!" Perhaps it's possible to know this, but it's not common
> knowledge, it doesn't generally represent the public's view of the
> AT&T mark.
> 
> I don't think the law would be workable in the US.
> 
> I'd be surprised if the law doesn't run into similar problems in
> Israel.
> 
Regards,
Mark