[ NNSquad ] Re: Google Hijacked -- Major ISP to Intercept and Modify Web Pages

["Russell Smiley" <smiley@nortel.com>]

> Steve Holton wrote:
> 
> An alternate view, if I may....
> Imagine if American Airlines attached an AA tag to every
> piece of luggage they carried....
> 

Hmmm. Yeah, helpful. American Airlines are using the tag to identify in
some vague sense that they are responsible for the luggage that is
supposed to travel on their aircraft.

Now imagine that they opened the luggage, substituted any items they
deemed inappropriate with more acceptable ones and left some advertising
material relating to your specific destination. I think this is the
analogy that is more consistent with ISP web content manipulation.

What is interesting in this analogy is that your luggage _is_ opened by
someone, but that entity is not the airline - it is the customs agency.
Inspection and judgement of the contents of your luggage is considered a
government responsibility, not a private one. 

Russell.