Response to Uni's "Lawsuit" Message

[jazz@hal.com (Jason Zions)]

Quoting from Curtis Frye's response:

   What exactly is Netcom's liability in this case?  If a service provider is
   treated as a phone company, abuse of the service could be grounds for
   discontinuing the service.  As Netcom did not discontinue tmp's service
   (see below), perhaps there is room for suit there.

By your phrase "treated as a phone company", are you implying Common Carrier
status? If so, I wonder under what grounds a common carrier is allowed to
terminate service? Certainly, non-payment of bills is one. If person A
alleges person B has made threatening phone calls, can the phone company
terminate person B's service unilaterally based solely on the allegations?
Must it wait until civil suits or criminal charges are brought? My
understanding of common carriage was that the carrier was obligated to
provide service to everyone within its service area, whether or not it liked
their politics, or bedmates, or the content of their communications.

   What protection should Netcom, and other access providers, have against the
   abuses of their subscribers?  Damn if I know, but it's an important
   question to stay awake at night worrying about...

What was in the contract signed by the subscribers? You can bet that if I
ever start an on-line service, there will be an "indemnify and hold
harmless" clause, and provisions for demanding proof of umbrella liability
coverage; lack of coverage upon demand would be grounds for termination. In
other words, if tmp@netcom were a subscriber to my service, and someone
alleged wrongdoing to this degree, my action would be to demand of tmp proof
of umbrella liability coverage of $1,000,000; without such proof, account
revoked. The only way to put teeth in an indemnify-and-hold-harmless clause
for an individual, I guess.

   Very much in line with your earlier thoughts on the potential (non-)
   application of traditional libel/slander law to the Net -- would the Courts
   allow cyberspace to be that much more rough-and-tumble, with higher
   standards of abuse required for successful suits?

They'll have to, with the current state of the art with respect to
authentication and non-repudiation. A plaintiff will have to work pretty
hard to prove a particular human generated a piece of email, given the ease
of spoofing, remailers, anonymity and pseudonymity.

I also thank Uni for posting.

Jason Zions