Subject: RE: [Asrg] Giving Public Notice ....

From: "Doug Phillips" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 18:30:33 -0500

>I'm no lawyer, but it is hard to understand how a message which no human
>will ever see could be considered binding on the people who operate the
company.

Actually, the federal E-Sign Act (enacted in 2000) provides that a contract 
may not be denied legal effect because it was created by one or more 
electronic agents (computer programs designed to act independently without 
contemporaneous human participation).

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

---

From: Hadmut Danisch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 16:10:35 -0800

> contemporaneous human participation).

Nice. To which countries does this act apply to?

Do both the sender and recipient have to be covered by
that act?

What if one part the of communcation is in a different legislation?

Hadmut

---

From: "John Rumpelein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 20:12:18 -0800

Doug,

> >I'm no lawyer, but it is hard to understand how a message which no 
> >human will ever see could be considered binding on the people who 
> >operate the
> company.
> 

The point is not whether or not a "contract" can be in electronic form (I
agree this is possible) but whether two people can enter into a contract
when only one of them is aware of its existence.  The answer, I think, is
no.

Your argument, if I understand it correctly, is that a mail server can enter
into legal agreements on its owner's behalf without his prior knowledge.
This seems... problematic.

-J

---

From: "Jon Kyme" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 09:10:26 +0000

> What if one part the of communcation is in a different legislation?

If that different legislation is Spain, it's probably covered by 
articles 1262 of the Civil Code and 54 of the Commercial Code
(but I am not a Spanish lawyer). Anyone know what's the status of this
issue in the EU generally? WTO? GATT?

--

---

From: "Chris Lewis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 11:26:07 -0500

> when only one of them is aware of its existence.  The answer, I think, is

No, only insofar as the "contract" not being an official recognized 
standard with requirements for compliance and methods for interrogating it.

If the standards evolve to make asking and answering the question 
feasible in an automated fashion, then laws can evolve to make 
compliance mandatory.

And remember as well, law is already evolving to recognize that 
"spamming" is universally frowned upon, and that "senders of spam" can 
no longer evade responsibility by saying "I never read the recipient 
server's AUP".

[See Verizon vs. Ralsky, and comments at the MIT spam forum from the 
lawyer who does spam cases.]