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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Statements against new.net?
Mathias Koerber wrote: > > I am not an American and not really familiar with US laws and > political thinking, but why is it that it is considered OKfor someone > to break away from, ignore the DNS root system, but not for others to > blackhole a player whose traffic they don't want to see. What laws > would prohibit the latter while not affeting the former? IANAL, so take this as one man's understanding and not necessarily the absolute truth.... Take an analogy from the oil industry. If Exxon lowers its prices, there's no problem. If Chevron, Hess, Citgo and Sunoco all see Exxon's action and decide to lower their prices in turn, in order to compete with Exxon, there's no problem. If Jim's gas-n-gulp can't compete with those prices and goes out of business, oh well, that's business. BUT if representatives from Exxon, Chevron, Hess, Citgo and Sunoco all got together and agreed to lower their prices in unison for the express purpose of running Jim's gas-n-gulp out of business, and then did it, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws. Putting this in the context of the new.net discussion, if an ISP chooses to blackhole new.net, they can. It doesn't matter what the reason is - nobody can force anybody else to carry someone else's traffic (barring things like common-carrier status, of course.) If a dozen or a hundred ISPs independantly choose to do blackhole new.net, they are similarly free to do so. And if new.net can't remain in business as a result of this, oh well, that's business. BUT if representatives from a dozen or a hundred ISPs meet together and choose to blackhole new.net for the explicit purpose of running them out of business, and then do so, they would be in violation of US anti-trust laws. -- David
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