In message <199509070542.BAA23214@libws4.ic.sunysb.edu>, Deranged Mutant writes [...]
I've heard some nasty stories about boards and a couple of I-Net providers who charge for access but reserve the right to throw someone off the system without refund (it's often in the terms of many account applications) for various no-nos.
Alot do more or less that, but if you were an Internet Service Provider how would you deal with it? For example what if a customer started sending obscene material to people who didn't want it, and the recipents started to complain to you, or the goverment? If you (the ISP) don't have a service agreement that says you can disconnect the customer in that case you are in danger of getting sued by them if you cut them off. If you don't cut them off you are in danger of getting sued or shut down by the goverment. Even if we were in a more libertarian society you run the risk of being boycotted by potential customers (of corse the analagy breaks down somewhat, in a very libertarian society oyu might be able to run a profatable ISP selling to the very nich market of people who want to threten, harass, or generally make a nuicence of themselves). As a result are unlikely to find an ISP that doesn't have a set of no-no's. (and if you do they may not be in bisness for long) The best I think you can do is find an ISP that publishes their list of no-no's (like the one I work for UUNET - see any file in ftp://ftp.uu.net/uunet-info with "svc" in it's name and skip down to "AlterNet Terms and Conditions"), and seems to have a reasonable set of them, and last but not least make sure that they do at least refund any payment for service not recieved. For example UUNET (which I work for - but this is mostly irrelivant as this is a statment of the facts, not an oponion) publishes their terms and conditions in ftp://ftp.uu.net/uunet-info (look at any file with "svc" in it's name and skip down to "AlterNet Terms and Conditions"). As for reasonability I'll leave that up to you to decide. -- And no, I'm not speaking for UUNET Technologies, or anyone but myself.