North American Network Operators Group
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RE: AOL holes again.

  • From: Roeland Meyer
  • Date: Wed Mar 21 10:57:35 2001 
> From: David Schwartz [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 2:03 AM
> 
> > That's a preposterous interpretation.  18 USC 2511(2)(a)(i) says:
> >
> > 	It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator

> > 	except that a provider of wire communication service to
> > 	the public shall not utilize service observing or random
> > 	monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control
> > 	checks.
> 
> 	You may have a very hard time convincing anyone that 
> rejecting significant
> amounts of legitimate mail is necessary. Necessity is a 
> requirement for
> exemption under this section.

But, it would be trivial to claim exemption by contractual agreement. Read
the AOL TOS please. There are clauses in there that specifically allow AOL
to monitor, modify, or delete email messages at-will. Back in the old days,
AOL actually had volunteers going through their message-base, regularly,
monitoring and deleting content that didn't meet AOL criteria.