[AusNOG] Legal Challenge To Meta Data Laws

[Ross Wheeler]

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015, Mark Smith wrote:

> I don't think it is anti-competitive. If I understand your argument,
>
> Webhost services only = no metadata costs
> Webhost + ISP services = metadata costs
>
> then I think this is the reality,
>
> Webhost services only = no metadata costs
> Webhost services = no metadata costs, ISP services = metadata costs
>
> In other words, for your webhost services, you have no more additional
> metadata costs than a pure webhost services competitor. They're not
> competing with you for ISP services, so they don't have an unfair
> advantage because they're not avoiding metadata costs for ISP services
> because they're not selling ISP services.

I don't want to get dragged into this, but what I took away from the OP 
was that two businesses, both offering webhosting with webmail, but one of 
them ALSO offering carriage service, are being treated differently.

In the case of the company ONLY offering webhosting, including webmail, 
there is no DR obligation, and therefore no compliance or ongoing cost.

The identical webhosting and webmail operation run by a company that ALSO 
offers carriage service *IS* subject to DR obligations and must now 
maintain all the required metadata relevant to their business, including 
email logs (webmail), customer details, payment methods, etc, etc.

This difference, is what I interpreted as the OPs "uncompetetive" 
component, but of course, I could be wrong. It is unbelievably badly 
worded and enacted legislation, and there's absolutely no guarantee that 
the department won't turn around and declare all hosting providers are 
(for the purposes of the legislation) providers. I actually see it as more 
likely that when faced with the argument, the government would simply 
include webhosting companies rather than excluding ISP/CSP/Carriers.

R.