John Morris wrote: > FWIW, and not to drag us too far into a legal discussion, but the > above is not correct for the United States. In the US, ISPs are > not, and never have been viewed, as common carriers. I agree on the legal point, but note that as we move further down the path of VOIP that is likely to change. My point was more about the inconsistency of wanting absolute control, but zero responsibility. For starters, they don't have absolute control, and even if they try to establish it, the endpoints will simply push them down a layer and tunnel over whatever is allowed. More importantly they want to maintain their zero responsibility position, and that will take precedence over control as soon as they are taken to court because they didn't prevent an action which they had the means to control through ever deeper packet inspection. The fundamental legal issue we need to deal with is the ability to absolutely identify the originator of the mail. Is that precluded by any existing privacy laws? If not, identity would provide the means to pursue financial recourse for wasted time and resources. If so, we have a non-technical issue that may prevent any solution. Tony