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========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:08:22 -0400
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Janet Abbate <jea@RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: Re: history of acceptable use policies
In-Reply-To: <199709170437.AAA14406@erebus.rutgers.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
David,
The issue of "acceptable use" arose because it was considered unacceptable by the US government to have commercial entities profit from a government- subsidized network. At the same time, network access was becoming increasingly important to commercial users in the 1980s, and the AUP was hard to enforce, especially since some users might be doing both commercial and non-commercial work, or a commercial user might need to contact a government contractor, etc. The solution was to privatize the Internet, and thus remove the possibility of anyone profiting from a public service. (The issue was never that commercial messages were considered worthless or intrusive, though they may have been.)
As I understand the timeline, the process of privatization began in 1990, when NSF transferred operational responsibility for the NSFnet to a nonprofit company called ANS (Advanced Network Services, now owned by American OnLine). The NSFNET was transferred to commercial operation in 1995. There is supposed to be an interim period of decreasing subsidies for government-sponsored users to help ease the transition, and the final end of NSF funding is scheduled for 1998. The AUPs were abandoned when the network switched to commercial operation, perhaps even before then.
The issue of AUPs and privatizing the Internet was discussed extensively on the USENET group "com-priv", which is probably archived somewhere.
Janet
------------------------------------------------ Janet Abbate
IEEE History Center
Rutgers University
39 Union Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08903-5062
jea@rci.rutgers.edu
>I'm trying to get a picture of the evolution of Internet acceptable use policies, particularly with respect to commercial use. As I understand up until about 1993 formally commercial use of the NSFNET was prohibited. I guess that by that time this was pretty much a dead letter since it would have been impossible to stop commercial traffic over the backbone coming from other networks. I read one source that said congress formally changed the NSF mandate in this regard in 1993.
>
>I guess that now these kind of network wide AUP's are unenforceable. Were they ever formally abandoned, or did they just fall by the wayside?
>
>David
>--
>David Smith, Doctoral Student
>School of Communication, Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada
>Internet: smithx@sfu.ca
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Janet Abbate <jea@RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: Re: history of acceptable use policies
In-Reply-To: <199709170437.AAA14406@erebus.rutgers.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
David,
The issue of "acceptable use" arose because it was considered unacceptable by the US government to have commercial entities profit from a government- subsidized network. At the same time, network access was becoming increasingly important to commercial users in the 1980s, and the AUP was hard to enforce, especially since some users might be doing both commercial and non-commercial work, or a commercial user might need to contact a government contractor, etc. The solution was to privatize the Internet, and thus remove the possibility of anyone profiting from a public service. (The issue was never that commercial messages were considered worthless or intrusive, though they may have been.)
As I understand the timeline, the process of privatization began in 1990, when NSF transferred operational responsibility for the NSFnet to a nonprofit company called ANS (Advanced Network Services, now owned by American OnLine). The NSFNET was transferred to commercial operation in 1995. There is supposed to be an interim period of decreasing subsidies for government-sponsored users to help ease the transition, and the final end of NSF funding is scheduled for 1998. The AUPs were abandoned when the network switched to commercial operation, perhaps even before then.
The issue of AUPs and privatizing the Internet was discussed extensively on the USENET group "com-priv", which is probably archived somewhere.
Janet
------------------------------------------------ Janet Abbate
IEEE History Center
Rutgers University
39 Union Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08903-5062
jea@rci.rutgers.edu
>I'm trying to get a picture of the evolution of Internet acceptable use policies, particularly with respect to commercial use. As I understand up until about 1993 formally commercial use of the NSFNET was prohibited. I guess that by that time this was pretty much a dead letter since it would have been impossible to stop commercial traffic over the backbone coming from other networks. I read one source that said congress formally changed the NSF mandate in this regard in 1993.
>
>I guess that now these kind of network wide AUP's are unenforceable. Were they ever formally abandoned, or did they just fall by the wayside?
>
>David
>--
>David Smith, Doctoral Student
>School of Communication, Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada
>Internet: smithx@sfu.ca
______________________________________________________________________
