Category: Electronic Communications

A disgruntled Verizon customer has filed a class action lawsuit against their internet service provider (‘ISP’), seeking compensation for losses incurred as a result of their aggressive mail filtering policy. Since 22 December, Verizon’s mail servers have been configured to automatically reject connections from Europe and other parts of the world, including China and New… Read more →

These days, it seems that spam (which has, despite being a trademark of Hormel Foods Corporation, fallen into common usage as a result of Monty Python) is an unavoidable consequence of having and utilising an e-mail address of some sort. Various proposals have been put forth, some legislative, others software-based, but all have failed to… Read more →

In more sedate news, the Washington Post has an interesting, if overstated, article about how the ephemeral nature of the internet is affecting academic research. Apparently, sources cited in research papers and theses change their Universal Resource Indicators (‘URIs’) very frequently, rendering references obsolete and gradually delegitimating the citing work. One solution to this problem… Read more →

The rapidity of mobile communication technology development has exceeded all expectations, but significant social and legal implications remain unexamined. Five years ago, the first tidings of discontent surfaced in response to the mobile revolution that was about to sweep through Western society – the public/private dichotomy was becoming blurred, and people were afraid of what… Read more →

The legal issues surrounding junk e-mail detection and removal continue to discourage internet service providers from employing pro-active filtering techniques. Many ISPs are concerned about being sued for filtering false-positive (incorrect) “junk” e-mail messages in compliance with the various anti-spam regulations currently under consideration in the United States. Service providers are placed in a difficult… Read more →