On Mon, 2012-06-18 at 13:23 -0700, Brad Knowles wrote: > On Jun 18, 2012, at 12:06 PM, Larry Stone wrote: > > > And the problem that I'm trying to fix is that their user has > >violated MY TOS regarding reporting list mail (that they subscribed > >to) as spam. That AOL sent their Feedback Loop message to me is > >therefore part of the violation of my terms. So whose terms ends up > >governing when they're in conflict? > > When you sign up for the feedback loop, you do so under the TOS of the > feedback loop. If their user violates your TOS by reporting your list > traffic as spam, that doesn't change the TOS of the feedback loop that > you signed up for.
Which brings up an interesting point, albeit it's mostly academic. It's been years since I read the TOS for AOL's Feedback Loop email. Does the TOS disallow trying to determine the address of the recipient, or just acting on this knowledge. The former is unenforceable, as are prohibitions on reverse-engineering proprietary software in my possession. Acting on this knowledge is another matter. I'm free to put whatever information I choose in an email I send to an AOL user, including a header with an encrypted recipient address. If AOL accepts it and sends it back to me in a spam report, and has not redacted information I put into it (and they are free to redact whatever they choose), then I must be able to learn what I can from the offending message, including from the headers. If indeed the TOS prohibits determining the address of the AOL recipient from the email, then it's only enforceable if I take action based on this knowledge, since this hardly rises to the level of industrial espionage. All kinds of things get put into TOS documents that are ridiculous and unenforceable on the face of it. Yes, AOL is under no obligation to send me Email Feedback Reports, and can stop doing so at any time for any reason. They can even cut off access to their user base from my servers. They don't have enough clout on the Internet anymore so that this would really hurt anyone but themselves. -- Lindsay Haisley | "Humor will get you through times of no humor FMP Computer Services | better than no humor will get you through 512-259-1190 | times of humor." http://www.fmp.com | - Butch Hancock ------------------------------------------------------ Mailman-Users mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/mailman-users Mailman FAQ: http://wiki.list.org/x/AgA3 Security Policy: http://wiki.list.org/x/QIA9 Searchable Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/mailman-users%40python.org/ Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/mailman-users/archive%40jab.org
