Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

ISPs of convenience

Author:Nick Sweeney
Posted:4/23/2000; 12:06:47 PM
Topic:ISPs of convenience
Msg #:16592
Prev/Next:16591 / 16593

Think about starting a worldwide ISP that has really high integrity and big pipes with replicated data and automatic switchover when there's an outage. And one other very important thing. No interest in the content it carries...

And there lies the rub: it's a nice idea, for sure, to have an ISP model which routes around both technical and legal blockages, but it's a legal minefield. Even if the ISPs who do the actual hosting of contentious material lie beyond the jurisdiction of the libel laws in other countries, the ones who'll end up in court will be the local ISPs who "link" to them. After all, Demon was a witless third party in the Godfrey case, and had to carry the can for "publishing" the relevant postings. As the Post article suggests, if a libel case can be brought against Forbes in Britain (2,000 circulation) rather than the US (800,000 circulation), the result of trying to evade the straightjacket of end-user agreements will likely be either litigation or censorship in those countries with stricter laws.

It makes no economic sense: who would want to provide capital for an ISP whose business plan was "we'll be in court all the time"? How could it make a public offering, given that such a policy would go against the fidiuciary responsiblities of directors to shareholders. And most of all, who would want to provide backbone access, given that when it comes to the law of defamation, culpability is the truly viral app?

I can imagine there being a time when it's possible to have the equivalent of a "flag of convenience" ISP (probably a US flag, given that First Amendment protection is far greater than any other nation's I can think of) but that disturbs me a little: after all, it's so often the Liberian-registered ships which spill oil on our shores, or the offshore-registered corporations which defraud their employees and customers. In practice, both the laws of defamation and the ways to escape regulation tend to favour the big guys over the little ones.

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