YouGov :"POLL - Blunkett's proposals on internet privacy: for or against"

[Charles Lindsey]

	On Mon, 17 Dec 2001 19:25:22 +0000
	Roland Perry <roland@linx.net> said...

> 
> In message <200112142118.VAA23695@clw.cs.man.ac.uk>, Charles Lindsey 
> <chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes
> >S21(4)(c) is static
> >information, so the question of retention times does not arise.
> 
> Just picking up this and the other point in isolation:
> 
> If you cancel your account with an ISP, and agree with the ISP that your 
> bill has been paid up and you had an unblemished record, why would they 
> need to keep information about you as a business purpose? Unless it's 
> something like a copy of your VAT invoices - or other reasons to do with 
> tax accounting.

AFAIK, they can keep it as long as they like (I don't thing that EC
Directive applies). It is just a question of what is considered "good
business practice". I would think details of previous customers are
currently languishing in the filing cabinets of many companies.
> 
> >The administrator of the server (who may of may not be an ISP, or a
> >telecommunications provider, but let us suppose he is)
> 
> RIPA says that servers are part of the network, so people administering 
> them are CSPs.

Are you sure? Suppose I rent a permanent net connection, and just run an
NNTP server (or web server for that matter) on a machine connected to
it. The machine does not run anything else (not even email). I allow the
general public (or maybe only my paying subscribers) to connect to it to
download news (or web pages).

Which bits if RIPA say that I am running a Telecommunications Service?
Whoever rented the connection to me would be, of course.

Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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