North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Eat this RIAA (or, the war has begun?) - Why not all ISPs?
Of course if TRW, Equifax, and that other credit bureau I can never remember listed Sony as a bad credit risk then virtually anyone could refuse them service, whether it was true or not. How's that for ironic. ----- Original Message ----- From: "N. Richard Solis" <[email protected]> To: "David Schwartz" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 3:18 PM Subject: RE: Eat this RIAA (or, the war has begun?) - Why not all ISPs? > > IANAL but I the way I understand the law is that collusion among different > companies to exclude another company from a particular enterprise can be > considered antitrust. In a practical sense, the exclusion must be > "effective" in that the excluded company would find it impossible to > compete. A lot of smaller providers telling Sony to take a hike might not > meet the definition but all of the large networks getting together to keep > Soony sans Internet might do the trick. Once again, IANAL. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of > David Schwartz > Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 2:59 PM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Eat this RIAA (or, the war has begun?) - Why not all ISPs? > > > > > > Generic question related to this: > > > > Can ISP's arbitrarily refuse to give service to someone who tries > > to sign up? i.e. if everyone refused to give Sony service could they > > sue on some sort of discrimination/collusion charge? > > > > Do ISP/ASP/*SP's HAVE to provide services if someone knocks on the > > door requesting them or can they refuse for any reason what so ever? > > > > Any armchair lawyers, who play one on TV, have the/an answer? > > > > -Rob > > As far as I know, yes, any company can refuse to do business with any > individual or company with very few exceptions. This even applies to > monopolists, providing their monopoly is legally acquired and they haven't > entered into any contracts to the contrary. The only exceptions I know of > involve either true discrimination unrelated to the transaction (such as > racial discrimination) or life, health and safety issues. > > DS > > >
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