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From: bzs@WORLD.STD.COM (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Prodigy
Message-ID: <9011140357.AA12611@world.std.com>
Date: 14 Nov 90 03:57:58 GMT
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In all fairness, the examples given seemed to involve Prodigy
filtering messages destined to public boards, not private e-mail.
If private e-mail was being looked at I would be interested in
hearing about that.

I agree with you that policies should be stated clearly if any
filtering is to occur. But certainly in the case of messages destined
for public areas the sense of privacy invasion is dulled somewhat,
even if one disagrees for other reasons.

For example, I have moderated (read before release) all messages going
through INFO-FUTURES. Everyone knew I was doing this (this was a long
time ago, when INFO-FUTURES came out as a digest.) I don't remember
ever eliding a message, but certainly it would be my right (let's put
it another way, it would be my "job"), for example if something seemed
purely inflammatory and/or irrelevant to the list's purpose.

>   Is the US government going to have a US mail Email network in the
>future? Will we trust them with it?

Um, they do already, it's called NSFnet.

>How will we know if the FBI is reading
>our mail? I don't think it could work... I mean, they can still tap our
>phones and open our mail if they want, but it is so much easier to
>intercept an electronic message...

The issue of encryption arises. Note that encryption on public
airwaves (e.g. Ham) is a violation of license! As far as I know use of
a scrambler on telephone calls is legal and doesn't raise eyebrows (I
guess it's somewhat common in corporate communications.)

>   I think that prodigy can do anything it wants to, but if it had made
>its policies about the disputed topics more well known, there would be
>less of an argument now. What do others think? What is the future of
>privacy in relation to Email and BBS's?

No, no one can do anything they want to. See, for example, the
Electronic Communications and Privacy Act.

And, on a more practical level, as with anything else, once they take
your money or otherwise enter into some sort of contract certain rules
must apply. If, for example, an e-mail provider led you to believe
that the service you were paying for included reasonable privacy then
violating that would be a violation of contract, and possibly fraud,
etc.

        -Barry Shein

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