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30 NOV 2002 by Gordon Fecyk, Pan-Am Internet Services
| If your local phone company is the only ISP you can use, and they don't allow mail servers, too bad. |
I LOVE READING IRATE LETTERS from users about the PDL. You'd think some of these users would be a little more grateful for a lower spam intake, but they also want to run their own mail servers, and they complain to me when they can't.
Well, actually they can, it's just the home ISP they subscribe to probably didn't design their home dial-in or home broadband service to let customers run their own servers. They also didn't design them to let spammers run certain programs on their networks either.
Like any other useful privilege consistently abused, many Internet providers disallowed the privilege of running a server. Intouch Internet was one of the first to do so as early as 1997. Five years later, the typical home subscriber agreement usually contains something like this:
Servers Forbidden. The customer shall refrain from using the Services to operate an Internet server (such as FTP, HTTP, IRC, MP3, PROXY, SMTP, POP or other)
LET'S GET SOMETHING STRAIGHT. Internet providers, at least the majority of Internet providers in North America, South America, Europe and Australia, are privately owned. The big pipe providers are almost exclusively privately owned. Owners and shareholders are graciously permitting you access to their private property so you can speak to people around the block or around the world. The people you communicate with through their network are in turn using the private property of another set of owners or shareholders so they can communicate with you.
At least in the United States and in Canada, people have broad rights over their own property. If there is competition for a similar service, a business owner may have more relaxed rules to attract more subscribers and the subscribers ultimately dictate policy. Competing Internet providers, however, often agree that spam is bad for business and therefore adopt similar policies regardless of subscriber wishes. The choice still falls on the owners. And yes, sometimes there's only one Internet provider for miles and you're stuck with using them.
If your local telephone company or cable company or whatever is the only Internet provider you can use, too bad. You are using their property and must follow their terms. Try civil disobedience if you must, otherwise shut up and obey their rules on their property or find another ISP and dial long-distance. But don't whine to me.
AND DON'T WHINE TO BRITISH TELECOM. The Register's John Leyden published a sober piece about BT's Broadband usage policy late this month. "[It will] make it too expensive for [a BT subscriber] to run his home mail server using his BTopenworld account." Oh, boo-hoo. Running a mail server costs more than £30/month, I'm sorry to say. It costs Pan-Am over US$100.00/month. If that BT subscriber whines to me, he should also offer to pay my Internet bill so I could receive his whining e-mail.
Or maybe I could just delete it. My mail server is my property, of course.
Leyden is correct. BT is only adopting policies already in widespread use across the 21st century Internet. The privilege of running your own mail server on the cheap is hereby revoked. I Have Spoken.
Heh, as though I could speak. After all, I'm at the mercy of my own ISP. By the way, the Manitoba Telecom Services Abuse Desk already knows about the PDL. I'm not violating their terms of service by hosting it on the Pan-Am network. They Have Said So. And Morty gets his US$100.00/month, so he's very happy. Don't whine to him, either.
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