ServInt Internet Services, as an Internet Service Provider, operates on a carrier-class network for its IP service, and provides a carrier-class service. With respect to the content of sites or domains hosted on our network, or E-mail or Usenet postings sent from our network, we maintain an Acceptable Use Policy consistent with providing a carrier-class service.
What this in essence means is that, like any other carrier-class service, such as the telephone network, the carrier has very specific limits on what it is legally responsible for in terms of policing the communications over its network. ServInt (like any other IP carrier network) cannot reasonably attempt to police the contents of the thousands of Gigabytes of data which is hosted on ServInt's network, or on networks which are clients of ServInt. Were any of the national carrier class Internet hosting or access providers to attempt to do this, the costs of Internet service would be prohibitive for users. Numerous court decisions, beginning with Church of Scientology v. Netcom, Inc. (1996) have upheld that Internet Service Providers may be considered to have "carrier" status in terms of their liability for the actions of their users.
For this reason, ServInt does not police the content of our clients, or the clients of our clients, outside of those incidents which touch on our legal responsibilities or our narrowly-focused Network Acceptable Use Policies (
http://www.servint.net/aup.html). We are obligated, upon receiving proper notice, to interfere with the content on our network when it involves:
1.) Violation of copyright or trademark acts, as defined by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
2.) Violation of laws of the United States or the Commonwealth of Virginia, as the state in which ServInt was incorporated (and in which its primary data center resides).
3.) Activities which constitute "network-unfriendly activity" (as defined in our Acceptable Use Policies) which would result in loss of connectivity from ServInt to other Internet carriers (i.e., the sending of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, Usenet spam, or network DoS attacks, etc.). The enforcement of similar Acceptable Use Policies concerning the above items is a standard procedure among backbone networks, and forms the basis for maintaining their interconnections.
If ServInt were to interfere with the content hosted on our network by clients or sub-clients outside of the conditions listed above, it would
set a precedent by which ServInt (and/or any other carrier-class service) could indeed be held responsible for any content on our network.
To analogize: telephone service providers must take action against the uses of their facilities when they are required to do so by law. However, banning individual telephone users based on subjective (not mandated by law) content restrictions would open the telephone provider to responsibility for monitoring all calls for offensive or inappropriate content.
In short, no matter how objectionable or personally offensive we, the staff of ServInt may find certain content which is hosted by a user of our network, we must restrict ourselves to upholding carrier-class service limits on how we may interfere with the content of our network. Were we to do otherwise, the precedent set would put ServInt (and every other large Internet provider) in the way of nearly limitless liability.
Therefore, the stated policy of ServInt Internet Services, as regards the interference with the content published to the Internet by a user of our network, is to maintain the obligations set forth for us by law and through our Acceptable Use Policies.
