-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- politas@dynamite.com.au (Politas) wrote:
Are you saying that Hotmail should be made a guarantor of the identity of its accountholders, or merely that they could be required, under certain circumstances, to divulge what information (if any) it possesses, regardless of its accuracy? AFAIK, the latter case is currently operative, since Hotmail's records are presumably already subject to subpoena (in the USA, at least -- I just realized you're posting from an Aussie domain).
The latter. Additionally, if they cannot provide a reliable next link in the identity chain (like another validated email address or a time-stamped IP address used to register the account), they should be held responsible for the posts from that account.
Why should the operator of the delivery medium be held responsible for the contents of a message? Perhaps the laws are different "down under", but here in the USA anyone can deposit coins in a public telephone and make a phone call without identifying himself. The person can't be identified, and neither can you hold the telephone company responsible for any damages you claim resulted from the call. It's the same with the US Postal Service. You can mail a letter from a public mail box and as long as the proper postage is attached, it will be delivered even if it doesn't have a return address, or if it contains a false return address. But if someone mails you a letter bomb, you can't sue the US Postal Service. So why institute draconian rules to restrict e-mail which are stricter than those for other communications media? I'll reiterate my opinion that such restrictive rules would cripple the usefulness of many currently-available services. I seriously doubt that Hotmail would take on the expense of identifying each of its account holders as well as assuming liability for any that it misidentified, in order to provide a FREE service. In fact, it would impact most ISPs. As long as you pay your monthly access fees on time, most ISPs take you at your word that the name and address you supplied on your application are correct. I would suggest that the recipient of a piece of e-mail should bear the responsibility for authenticating its sender before sending someone money, or taking other action that could potentially incur a financial loss. Transferring that duty to the ISP makes no sense. For one thing, who would you hold responsible? Your own ISP? The one listed in the return address? Even if it's forged? What if the ISP is located in another jurisdiction? - --- Finger <comsec@nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNJmXHAbp0h8ZvosNAQFC1wf+N7lY2dXQNXt/Wl4MXPR+c2Intr4bG9Xw N7qaKiHRqNszuD55yx5iXhKRgxtbnlBzMuUv3sr800M3kmrXqQJBzeDA/ljcASSU Bi5kBHlpTcASm5H1jhRjRSk0BL+KCuTzmunCSExiB7tD2XNb/qGO+4bpcMdJ2A3z nY7kmNjptt9vZJ3ZSz2l/n7IbplcUXWiRcHeJ4Nwp6ehjYzJX43d5snzhymJhLlK 6paX461Szcn5+3ILgv2JPfMxdG282mY1dSzxpScaHZ1pu0dh3702TlO37A9sfykc 4yAFDDLaCBnidyw0Fz//YGpgNhCYphKDyx1yNF7Aeyni0Kv0YovAtg== =8nzS -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----