I would like to draw the attention of public to the silent war between ISPs
that is hurting the Internet consumers in India.
In order to understand the issue involved, let's take the following two
hypothetical examples:
Example 1:
You are a "Shah" and have been living at some address for some time. Some
how you feel necessary to change your house and occupy some other house on
rent. Things are smooth for some time. One fine day you realize that no
visitors are coming to your house. When you check, you find that the name
board in front of your house has been changed and the name of the occupant is
shown as some body other than you. On investigation, you find that your house
owner has changed the name and when you query, you are told that any person
who occupies his house has to be only a "Mehta".
Now the choice is before you.. either change your name to Mehta or quit the
house.
This is what Dishnet is asking its customers to do, by unilaterally barring
use of their SMTP server for any out going mails sent from an e-mail client
such as out look express where the e-mail Id is anything other than @eth.net
Example 2:
You have been a customer of State Bank of India for a long time where
you have large deposits. You have recently taken a loan from ICICI Bank for
which you are paying out monthly instalments by cheque on ICICI Bank.
Every month you transfer the required money from SBI to ICICI Bank to meet the
loan cheques. One fine day SBI calls you up and says, you are not
allowed to transfer money from our bank to ICICI Bank,
Now the choice is before you...either transfer the deposit to ICICI
Bank or
pay up the loan in advance.
This is what VSNL has been asking its customers to do by shutting of their SMTP server for all
those clients who log in to Internet using any access account other than VSNL
account.
This mutual blocking of SMTP servers for clients who have multiple access
accounts is ostensibly to prevent misuse of the SMTP server for spamming.
In the process both ISP s are playing around with the "Digital Identities"
of Netizens forcing them to change the identities in tune with the access
accounts.
Unfortunately, even the techno savvy people at the ISP level
seem to be blissfully ignorant of the responsibilities cast on them by the
digital society.
With the increased usage of Internet by the public and the emphasis on
E-Governance both at the Corporate level and the Political Governance level,
"Connectivity" and "Digital Identity" have become serious issues with legal
implications.
It is an unfair business practice to link the e-mail ID with the access
accounts. This is nothing different from Microsoft integrating the Internet
Explorer with the operating software for which it is faced the Anti Trust suit
in USA.
naavi.org has already highlighted in the past the need for better
uptime of connectivity and guaranteed band width. We have also highlighted the
need for "Evidence Preservation" at ISP s for a reasonable time. We have also
highlighted the impropriety of "Bouncing of E-mails" without a proper notice
mechanism.
Some time back we had brought to the notice of the public that Dish Net
was delaying delivery of out going e-mails by more than 24 hours because of
some strange virus filtering they were subjecting the out going mails. The
technical problems if there were any were not brought to the notice of the
users so that the users were under the impression that the e-mails had been
delivered in time.
The present action of Dishnet to have reconfigured their mail system
without notice resulting in the vanishing of e-mails is grossly unfair and has
resulted in substantial financial loss to all those who have been depending on
e-mails for their business.
Is this Ignorance? .. Is this Negligence? or Is this Arrogance?.. only the
CEO of Dishnet should explain.
At the same time, VSNL should also realize that their action in forcing
their existing customers to use their competitor's e-mail services is a
potential marketing opportunity lost for promoting their brand name.
It is high time that the Ministry of Information Technology takes a fresh
look at the licensing terms of the ISP s and ensure mutual sharing of
SMTP resources between ISP s. Any misuse of SMTP services by any client of one
of the ISP s can always be punished by a mutual agreement between them since
the identities are known.
Failing action from the Ministry of Information Technology, the Consumer
action group should initiate action to prevent the forced linking of digital
identification (e-mail ID s) to "Internet Access Contracts".
Naavi
March 18, 2002