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Re: Proposed EU Directive on Electronic Commerce


  Two rather basic questions:
  
  - do we accept/support/request regulation which in one way or another
    implies technical *implementation* or which implies deployment of a
    *particular* technology (TCP/IP/SMTP/..., RFC-xxxx) ?
    
    I suppose being very specific opens up the opprtunity to simply use a
    "slightly" different technology and then argue about the applicability
    of the regulation. I can image quite a few ways of spamming without
    going through email. In fact some of these things are in use already
    in the framework of the www...
    
  - trying to filter the info streams at the "last mile" does not really
    solve the problem. Of course it *could* solve the problem of the
    individual subscriber's access cost (phone-bill, and the like), but 
    it still allows the stealing of resources on the transit paths.
    These resources have to be paid for, anyway, usually by the customers
    of an ISP :-)
    
    Thus I suppose a better approach c/w/should be to work at the ingress
    side for UCE. This means service contracts, AUPs, and enforcement of
    these. Which, in the end, means: do ISPs want to sacrifice their
    income (directly or indirectly, e.g. by offering anonymous access) for
    the advantage(?) of being categorized  as a "good" ISP and Netizen ??
    
  Wilfried.
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  Wilfried Woeber                :  e-mail: Woeber@localhost
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