On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:53:34 -0000, Brian Johnson said:
It is interesting that some people who fully understand that the Internet is composed of many networks run by people with different interests can say what is best for the Internet as a whole. How my organization (or yours or anybody else's) runs our network, is between us and our paying users.
That claim is true *ONLY* to the extent that 'how your organization runs your network' does _not_ have an adverse effect on other peoples networks. The fact of the matter is that you do not have a viable business without the collective 'tolerance'/'approval' of the rest of the world. You, and your organization, need them far more than they need you. _How_ you pro-actively ensure spam does not exit from your network IS your business. That you *do* do so _is_ within the action purveiw of the 'rest of the world'. "Doing so" requires that you _actively_ monitor the behavior of your customers and have 'ways and means' in place to (a) detect, and (b) _stop_ immediately upon detection, such abusive behavior by your customers. One of the 'easiest', and most _cost-effective_ ways of doing so *is* to force all outgoing mail from your customers through a 'choke point' for examination/filtering/blckcing. The simplest way of doing that, *without* running afoul of 'wiretapping' statutes. is to require, by policy and by blocking direct external access, that customer out-bound email traffic go through your servers, and doing the necessary 'inspection' there.