Doug Merritt writes:
I haven't kept up on this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that BBS's had a choice as to whether to operate as Common Carriers or not, as long as they were strictly consistent. If they want to be categorized as Common Carriers then they have to have strict policies of hands-off privacy, are not liable for the content of messages on their board, and the ECPA applies. But if they do not guarantee privacy, do not perform any kind of censorship or other control of message contents, then they are not Common Carriers and the ECPA does not apply.
ECPA is not limited to common carriers.
Prodigy would be an example of the former, Internet email & news would be an example of the latter.
ECPA applies both to Prodigy and to Internet message traffic. --Mike