What the California judges ruled was that even if the ISP is in the same state as the person making the complaint, a court in that state does not have jurisdiction over a user from another state who has no other presence except his ISP
I don't remember which state it was, but a Federal judge ruled just a few days ago that simply having your site hosted on a computer in a jurisdiction in which you had no other "legal" presence did not create such legal presence, and without that legal presence, you could not be requred to reply to a suit in that jurisdiction.
Sounds to me like Virginia is trying to overrule the Federal courts - or someone is up for re-election.
Glad to here it - I'm stuck in TCI's wasteland - Grand Rapids, Michigan. We have the cheapest cable they could install - and the worst selection. My old home town of Northbridge, Mass. just negociated a new contract (last year) with Greater Media that included wiring all houses in town with fiber to the house over the next five years - the wire in the streets was already fiber throughout the entire town. But they still had exclusive use. I had only know of New York City as having true competition.
If you look closely on each pole, you will see a metal tag. This tag identifies the owner. Usually, whatever service an area needs first determines the owner - eg if the electric company comes in first, they put up the poles. All other users of that pole pay rent for using it - including the local fire department (those red cross bars on the pole). After a storm or accident, which ever utility gets there first, replaces the pole. After a major storm, the utilities often coordinate who works in which area, depending on who has what resources available where. There are even times when the town will replace the pole - some towns have their own power company, others have their own cable companies.
Today, that also holds true for both electric lines and telephone lines. If there are more than one supplier in the area sharing distribution lines, they may each be paying rent (or access fees) to the other for one batch of lines and collecting for another.
As for who owns the lines in the first place, the cable franchises were given exclusive rights to provide service to the town for a specified length of time in exchenge for wiring the town. At the expiration of that time period, most contracts specify that the town owns the rights to the cable if the contract is not renewed.
If the cable companies are willing to allow competition in cable tv then they would own the complete rights to the cable. However, since most cable franchises are monopolies granted by the local municipality and are adamantly opposed to allowing anyone to string cable in their territory, the legal arguement about access has to model the phone company, which mandates mutual access to the existing infrastructure.
The flip side of this, which no one has pickedup on yet, is that this ruling may open the door for competition in cable tv suppliers! Maybe we'll get some real choice instead of more religious, pay-per-view, and infomercial channels.
You have to admit that it works both ways - Look at the damage done to a highly "controlling" institution - Briton's MI6 - by one ex-employee, without that organization being able to retaliate.
With every attempt to monitor and track there comes a groundswell that - at least partially - negates the original "Big Brotherism". Just look at the reaction to the id circuit in the new Pentium III chip, or Microsoft's gathering of information during product registrations.
It will be ten years or so before this whole "new world" of the internet society starts to settle down and be civilized. Until then, there are going to be a lot of attempts from every corner to try to insure that that group, institution, political organization, or any other sub-set of society, becomes one of the eventual "top dogs".
It is up to each of us to stay aware of what happens around us, and speak up when someone tries to impose excessive controls, or tries to do limit the personal freedoms that should be (and in some countries, are specified by law) the right of every human on earth.
Not to deflate your ego, but over half of all US citizens do not have Anglo Saxon names - just take a look at the US Olympic teams and other sports teams! You can't judge a person's citizenship by the name.
Having grown up in an architect's home, I have learned first-hand that most plans are NOT drawn by licensed architects. He who holds the license draws the overall concept and interns or other junior draftsmen do the actual drawings. Which might not be a bad model - the programming manager or dept head would have to be licensed, and all the rest stay the way we like - coding.
Seems to me that any site that excludes more than it includes is NOT the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - If it truely was what it claims to be, then Mac users, Netscape users, BeOs users, Linux users, etc., would be able to fully use the site.
There was an interesting comment on 60 Minutes last night. One of the guest remarked that in the 1950's, when Juvenile Deliquency was first becomming a problem, the 'experts' immediately started blaming the violence in comic books - and some of the goriest were actually banned. Yet, when you look at all of us that grew up with them, 99.99...% grew up more or less normal (as far as violence is concerned). Even Vietnam didn't permanently affect most of us. The question is, what is the difference in that tiny fraction that somehow crosses over into self-destructive violence. It has to be something internal to them and not some external factor.
If memory serves me correctly, sometime in the late 70's or early 80's, Hilton joined up with one of the major airlines (I think it was TWA) and a major travel packager to put together a space vacation reservation system. The idea was that if there was enough interest (via deposits) the group would go ahead with building the whole shebang - space hotel, shuttles, etc.
I couldn't aford it then, can't now, but who knows what the future brings!!!
Slashdot Mirror
What the California judges ruled was that even if the ISP is in the same state as the person making the complaint, a court in that state does not have jurisdiction over a user from another state who has no other presence except his ISP
the question was not about AOL's legal presence, but of the legal presence of an AOL subscriber - an entirely different legal situation
I don't remember which state it was, but a Federal judge ruled just a few days ago that simply having your site hosted on a computer in a jurisdiction in which you had no other "legal" presence did not create such legal presence, and without that legal presence, you could not be requred to reply to a suit in that jurisdiction.
Sounds to me like Virginia is trying to overrule the Federal courts - or someone is up for re-election.
Glad to here it - I'm stuck in TCI's wasteland - Grand Rapids, Michigan. We have the cheapest cable they could install - and the worst selection. My old home town of Northbridge, Mass. just negociated a new contract (last year) with Greater Media that included wiring all houses in town with fiber to the house over the next five years - the wire in the streets was already fiber throughout the entire town. But they still had exclusive use. I had only know of New York City as having true competition.
If you look closely on each pole, you will see a metal tag. This tag identifies the owner. Usually, whatever service an area needs first determines the owner - eg if the electric company comes in first, they put up the poles. All other users of that pole pay rent for using it - including the local fire department (those red cross bars on the pole). After a storm or accident, which ever utility gets there first, replaces the pole. After a major storm, the utilities often coordinate who works in which area, depending on who has what resources available where. There are even times when the town will replace the pole - some towns have their own power company, others have their own cable companies.
Today, that also holds true for both electric lines and telephone lines. If there are more than one supplier in the area sharing distribution lines, they may each be paying rent (or access fees) to the other for one batch of lines and collecting for another.
As for who owns the lines in the first place, the cable franchises were given exclusive rights to provide service to the town for a specified length of time in exchenge for wiring the town. At the expiration of that time period, most contracts specify that the town owns the rights to the cable if the contract is not renewed.
If the cable companies are willing to allow competition in cable tv then they would own the complete rights to the cable. However, since most cable franchises are monopolies granted by the local municipality and are adamantly opposed to allowing anyone to string cable in their territory, the legal arguement about access has to model the phone company, which mandates mutual access to the existing infrastructure.
The flip side of this, which no one has pickedup on yet, is that this ruling may open the door for competition in cable tv suppliers! Maybe we'll get some real choice instead of more religious, pay-per-view, and infomercial channels.
You have to admit that it works both ways - Look at the damage done to a highly "controlling" institution - Briton's MI6 - by one ex-employee, without that organization being able to retaliate.
With every attempt to monitor and track there comes a groundswell that - at least partially - negates the original "Big Brotherism". Just look at the reaction to the id circuit in the new Pentium III chip, or Microsoft's gathering of information during product registrations.
It will be ten years or so before this whole "new world" of the internet society starts to settle down and be civilized. Until then, there are going to be a lot of attempts from every corner to try to insure that that group, institution, political organization, or any other sub-set of society, becomes one of the eventual "top dogs".
It is up to each of us to stay aware of what happens around us, and speak up when someone tries to impose excessive controls, or tries to do limit the personal freedoms that should be (and in some countries, are specified by law) the right of every human on earth.
Not to deflate your ego, but over half of all US citizens do not have Anglo Saxon names - just take a look at the US Olympic teams and other sports teams! You can't judge a person's citizenship by the name.
Having grown up in an architect's home, I have learned first-hand that most plans are NOT drawn by licensed architects. He who holds the license draws the overall concept and interns or other junior draftsmen do the actual drawings. Which might not be a bad model - the programming manager or dept head would have to be licensed, and all the rest stay the way we like - coding.
Seems to me that any site that excludes more than it includes is NOT the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - If it truely was what it claims to be, then Mac users, Netscape users, BeOs users, Linux users, etc., would be able to fully use the site.
Sorry, this is just a sham wannabe.
There was an interesting comment on 60 Minutes last night. One of the guest remarked that in the 1950's, when Juvenile Deliquency was first becomming a problem, the 'experts' immediately started blaming the violence in comic books - and some of the goriest were actually banned. Yet, when you look at all of us that grew up with them, 99.99...% grew up more or less normal (as far as violence is concerned). Even Vietnam didn't permanently affect most of us. The question is, what is the difference in that tiny fraction that somehow crosses over into self-destructive violence. It has to be something internal to them and not some external factor.
Not this time - all you have to do is look at which major labels have signed on to which standard - Microsoft: 0; Real Audio: everyone
If memory serves me correctly, sometime in the late 70's or early 80's, Hilton joined up with one of the major airlines (I think it was TWA) and a major travel packager to put together a space vacation reservation system. The idea was that if there was enough interest (via deposits) the group would go ahead with building the whole shebang - space hotel, shuttles, etc.
I couldn't aford it then, can't now, but who knows what the future brings!!!