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Subject: Need license to run email server?

From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@hotmail.com>

In China. Anti-Spam legislation hijacked by politics

http://www.isc.org.cn/20020417/ca346007.htm http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2154063/china-outlaws-outlook

China has introduced regulations that make it illegal to run an email server without a licence. The new rules, which came into force two weeks ago, mean that most companies running their own email servers in China are now breaking the law.

More than 600,000 servers were sold in China last year, according to market researchers. It's unclear how many of these are running mail server software, which includes programs like Microsoft Outlook Server, Sendmail, Qmail or
Lotus Notes.

The new email licensing clause is just a small part of a new anti-spam law formulated by China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII). The chilling effect on corporate email servers, which are commonly used by companies with more than a handful of employees, appears to have gone unnoticed until now.

However, Singapore-based technology consultant, James Seng, who first drew attention to the new email licence requirement, believes the inclusion of the prohibition on mail servers is no accident.

"Looking at the Chinese text, it is clear they have worded it carefully", he told vnnet, "They know exactly what they are doing and what they want. So this isn't a case of clueless civil servants screwing up or just bad translation."

Seng, a former assistant director of Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority, is a co-holder of several internet-related patents and the founder and former CTO of multilingual domain names company, i-DNS.

China's new rules also prohibit use of email to discuss certain vaguely
defined subjects related to 'network security' and ' information security',
and also reiterate that emails which contain content contrary to existing laws must not be copied or forwarded. Wide-ranging laws of this nature have been used against political and religous dissenters in the past.

"I believe that the intent to have an antispam regulation was a good one,"
Seng says, "Unfortunately, it seems like during the policy formulation
process, it got hijacked and went to one extreme."

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ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ Mauro R. Veiga Ä maurorveiga@yahoo.com.br ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ  ÄÄÄÄÄÄ
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