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1: NSF and several regional nets have acceptable use policies which do not permit commercial use. 2: Messages posted by the company (or by someone who is assumed to represent the company) would be in violation of these policies if the messages crossed the applicable networks.

I don't think a description of a policy is at all clearly "commercial use". Advertising, and use of net resources in the course of doing business seem to be commercial use - but a discussion with outside folks about policies or conditions doesn't seem to be commercial use. To suggest that net traffic originating at a site with a .com domain name is commercial seems to over-reach. If you don't think that talking to the public about what your company is doing constitutes commercial activity, I have some friends in

the corporate media relations business who would be very interested to know about that.

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3: There is no way to prevent a specific message over usenet from crossing a specific network. 4: The owner of a network site (the company) is assumed to be responsible for any "unacceptable use" traffic that comes from the site.

I don't think I buy this one, either. If I can't control traffic (see #3) how is it reasonable to say that I am responsible for it (#4)?

I didn't say that it was reasonable, only that it was true.

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5: This liability would leave the company open to having its net feed cut off for such unacceptable use.

This assumes that the net feed comes from a provider which restricts commercial use. Some providers (like Alternet) welcome commercial use.

But I don't know of any providers which encourage people to send traffic over government nets which violates government policies. As long as the traffic stays within the commercial net, they're happy, but I don't know of any provider that doesn't have a policy staing that its users must follow the policies for any other networks that their traffic crosses. Usenet posts will almost by definition cross all of the IP nets, so they should conform to all of the acceptable use policies. (So far as I know, this has never been enforced, but it's still the rule.

however, perhaps naiive. If I see a posting from Jim Bizdos, I *do* assume that he is speaking for RSADSI/PKP, unless he makes efforts to disclaim such

We aren't talking about Jim Bizdos. I agree that it's fair to assume he speaks for PKP. But mail originating from a company machine doesn't necessarily come from someone who speaks for the company. -- Matthew B. Landry | mbl@mail.msen.com President of Project SAVE | (313)971-5469 (H/W) My opinions are my most prized posession. I don't share them.