Re: U.S. Postal Service proposal: restricting domain names to street addresses

[Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@aa.fv.com>]

Excerpts from mail: 14-Aug-98 Re: U.S. Postal Service pro.. Michael
Sondow@ic.sunysb (2361*)

> I fail to see the logic behind your arguments. If e-mail can go to a
> street address, it is no more than a telegram. Why, then, has all the
> trouble to set up networked digital communications be taken? Surely the
> whole point to the Internet is that it serves two-way communication that
> is not restricted by geography: you can get your e-mail anywhere, change
> your e-mail address or your domain name from one ISP or server to
> another, alias mail, bounce it, forward it at will.

There is more than one whole point to the Internet.  (Indeed, the
previous sentence is as close as I'd care to come to trying to sum up
the whole point of the Internet.)  If you were right about the "whole
point", Microsoft and others wouldn't be providing their city-specific
web sites, and nobody would be in the business of broadcast over the
net, and yet both of these applications seem to be thriving.

The real win, as far as geographic email is concerned, would be to have
email groups that can serve to *enhance* geographic groups, notably
neighborhoods.  There have been some very exciting success stories with
things like giving email to a group of poor people in housing projects;
by providing the convenience of email to such groups, it seems that you
can enhance other aspects of community and ultimately even lower the
crime rate (because people who know each other, having met via email,
are more likely to watch out for each other).  It's also an incredible
potential tool for activists -- if the city is neglecting your street,
send email to all your neighbors asking them to write letters or come to
a meeting about it.  Sure, you can contact all your neighbors in other
ways, but what could be easier and quicker than email to a mailing list
representing your neighborhood?

With regard to the notion of a hybrid email/physical mail service:  This
is, to my mind, a transitional tool, nothing more.  As such, I think it
could be a very positive development from an environmental perspective. 
Much as I hate junk email, it's still far less environmentally harmful
than junk paper mail.

> If community groups wish to set up local (geographical) lists, nothing
> is stopping them from walking around the heighborhood and collecting
> people's e-mail addresses. It is not necessary, and would not work, for
> the addresses to be somehow defined by the neighborhood. People move.
> Others who live there, and by your argument would have an address with a
> local definition, do not want to be in the community group.

Sure, nothing's stopping them -- except that most people don't know how
to set up mailing lists, and are shy about walking around to strangers'
houses.  If someone relatively trusted, like the USPS, provided an
optional service where you could register your email address as being
associated with your physical address, something like this would be much
more likely to get off the ground.  -- Nathaniel
--------
Unless all existence is a medium of revelation, no particular revelation is
possible.	-- William Temple

Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb+faq@guppylake.com>