Without attempting to actually clarify what tortious interference actually is, let's just make it clear that Bill's attempted explanation isn't it.
On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 2:54 PM William Herrin via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote: > On Thu, May 29, 2025 at 10:57 AM Andrew Kirch <trel...@trelane.net> wrote: > > (A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to > > or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be > > obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, > > or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is > > constitutionally protected > > Hi Andrew, > > The key phrase here is "taken in good faith." After I've notified you > of an error, your action stops being good faith. You've either > investigated my complaint and determined your action is reasonable and > correct, investigated my complaint and fixed your error, or failed to > investigate my complaint. Whichever way you go, it's no longer a "good > faith" matter and this section of the statute no longer applies. Your > following action has to stand the test of reasonability without it. > > In the Spamhaus case, their defense was: "We merely published a > summary of our observations about the plaintiff's behavior." That's an > objectively reasonable thing to do. > > > > I don't have to accept your traffic. Amazon doesn't have to accept > > your traffic. No one has to accept your traffic. I can deny your > > traffic for any lawful reason even if that traffic might be otherwise > > constitutionally protected. > > "We reserve the right to refuse service," is a very common sign but it > has no force of law. If you refuse service without a reasoned and > articulable cause, you run afoul of a thousand statutes and precedents > which bound the lawful causes for doing so. Tortious interference is > one of those precedents. It says that if you knowingly prevent third > parties from completing a reasonable and lawful contract with each > other, you're liable for the damage that interference causes. > > There are, of course, many more lawful reasons for refusing service > than unlawful ones. But you can't be arbitrary or capricious about it; > you have to be able to articulate a cause for that specific refusal > that a reasonable person would find sensible. > > Section 230 doesn't undo the tortious interference precedents. It just > reminds the judge that _knowingly_ is a part of the claim the > plaintiff must prove with specificity. That your interference was > unintentional is a winning affirmative defense. > > tl;dr: you claim that section 230 means ISPs can legally do whatever > they want blocking network traffic no matter how reckless. That's > simply not the case. It protects ISPs behaving _reasonably_. > > Regards, > Bill Herrin > > > -- > William Herrin > b...@herrin.us > https://bill.herrin.us/ > _______________________________________________ > NANOG mailing list > > https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/GFCQVZFR3N5ZIBHO447XRMM34H7FAOCV/ _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/NK3TUIS4KQWDEMLFZJJFCSCVVJ2YF36X/
