RE: [NTISP] Spam policy -- any ideas?

Michael J. Gibbs ( (no email) )
Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:33:24 -0800

Adam, the post office analogy is incorrect as (at least here in the US) the
Post Office is one entity, no matter where you go. Bulk mail delivery is
paid for by the sender. SPAM is NOT the same. The cost of delivery is paid
for by the all the ISPs between sender and receiver(s), by the ISPs who
store and forward the offending mail, by administrators of corporate mail
systems. And this doesn't even touch who ends up paying for the cost of
backlash.

Just say no to SPAM!

-----Original Message-----
From: ntisp-request@iea-software.com
[mailto:ntisp-request@iea-software.com]On Behalf Of Adam Greene
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 1999 9:04 AM
To: ntisp@iea-software.com
Subject: [NTISP] Spam policy -- any ideas?

Hi,

I was wondering what peoples' policies are regarding Unsolicited Bulk Email
sent by their customers, and why you have that policy.

---Some of my own thoughts:I am having trouble accepting a blanket policy of not allowing any Spam tobe sent out by any of my customers.  (I'm an ISP in NewYork).  Some of my business customers may want to use this form ofadvertising, and while I personally dislike receiving Spam, I amnot sure if that is enough of a reason to form a policy against allowing it.

  At this moment, there is no legislation prohibiting Spam, and it evenappears that legislation allowing Spam which conforms tocertain guidelines will be considered legally acceptable, if the recent billin Congress gets passed.

But what should an ISP's policy be?  Maybe since bulk emailers use up mailserver CPU time and Internet bandwidth, rather thandisallowing the Spam, a policy based on charging a price for CPU andbandwidth usage could be considered reasonable.

Maybe some of the ambiguity comes from the fact that while you can chargefor bandwidth used by outgoing mail, how can you chargefor bandwidth used by incoming mail?  That is, if you allow Spam to be sentout, how does that affect the other ISP's who have todeliver it?

I wonder how the U.S. Post Office does it.  How does the money getdistributed when someone pays their local Post Office to send outsome bulk mail?  Do the other Post Offices in the country get a cut of thepostage, since they have to deliver the mail that isbeing sent to them?

I am interested on anyone else's point of view about this subject, since itis clear to me that I don't have a very complete graspof the situation, and thus am not sure of how to form a policy regarding it.

Regards,Adam Greene





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