On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 8:34 AM, John R. Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
With the "legal content" rule, I expect some bottom feeding bulk mailers to sue claiming that their CAN SPAM compliant spam is legal, [...] Until yesterday, there were no network neutrality rules, not for spam or for anything else.
There still aren't any network neutrality rules, until the FCC makes the documents public, which they haven't yet. Until the FCC publish the documents: it's kind of pointless to speculate what the unintended consequences might be. However, I believe E-mail is definitely an internet application, not broadband service, so filtering incoming E-mail on the provider's servers should definitely be unaffected. So long as the broadband service provider's e-mail filtering is performed only on their e-mail server and does not involve blocking IP traffic on consumers' connections. What *might* happen is that spammers could sue if the broadband provider terminates a _subscriber's_ broadband service for sending outgoing spam, or the provider Attempts to block outgoing Port 25 traffic from their IP addresses, for the purpose of preventing operating SMTP Server applications, in order to reduce spamming attempts. (Now the service provider is blocking lawful traffic, outgoing SMTP!) My preferred resolution would be for the internet IP connectivity provider and the last mile Broadband/Layer 1 media connectivity carriers to be completely separate companies, with IP providers allowed to manage their Internet Protocol network however they see fit, and Broadband carriers required to provide equal connectivity to all competing local IP carriers. The broadband carrier need-not have an IP network, and the IP carrier might not even connect to the internet, or they might use communication protocols besides IP.
R's, John -- -JH