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Re: The %^&# did it!

  • From: Declan McCullagh
  • Date: Wed May 17 01:09:17 2000

A few thoughts:

* I didn't write this morning's Wired News article, but it's pretty much on-target. If you want a rather long feature story on this stuff, check out a 1997 piece I did for Wired Magazine:
http://www.wired.com/wired/5.06/netizen.html

* The House did vote for the bill today. It passed. The Senate has not done the same.

* This is an inevitable consequence of having wacky "universal service fund" ideas in the telephone industry. (Good idea, maybe, but the implementation?) It carries over into the online world with unforseen and probably harmful unintended consequences.

-Declan



At 13:45 5/16/2000 -0700, Derek J. Balling wrote:

At 04:34 PM 5/16/00 -0400, Jim Mercer wrote:


On Tue, May 16, 2000 at 01:29:05PM -0700, Eric A. Hall wrote:
> > i don't use ICQ, but i sorta understood it to be half between biff and
> > irc.
> >
> > how is ICQ considered an "online telephone service"?
>
> It has two modes. In simple mode it is as you state. In advanced mode it
> offers a voice chat function.

ah, that would explain it.
Yeah, but it still wouldn't surprise me if the law was so poorly-written that it ALSO applied to:

Instant Messenger services
E-Mail services
E-Mail to Pager Gateways
E-Mail to Cel Phone Gateways
Overnight Delivery Package Tracking systems
Porn Site Credit Card Verification Systems

;-)

D