On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Chris Wedgwood wrote:
On Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 02:42:27PM +1300, Andy Linton wrote:
You could also get into the potentially dangerous ground of "your list checks for viruses and you failed in your duty of care to block a particular virus which then infected my system - send $5 to xxx(a)yyy as compensation".
IANAL but I can't see how you could enforce such a thing.
enforcement is not the issue. Linton is correct in making his statement. The issue in this case is when you take control of a process or proceedure - i.e. scan for viruses. In that case you have taken control of a process and as such your potential liability increases significantly. however, even in the case of a list which check for viruses, there would be mitigating circumstances. i.e. was this a well known virus that the list operator could prevent from distribution - or was it a spanking new virus. in any case i think linton is trying to point out that if you scan or in some way gurantee a virus free distribution list then there is a potential liability issue present - as opposed to a list which is unmoderated and real time. However the inability to "enforce suck a thing" as you have pointed out above would be considered a mitigating circumstance. But the argument could be a proverbial legal catch 22 situation - because although enforcement or the inability to enforce would mitigate the liability issue - in some courts the next question would be "well why did you try to gurantee a virus free list when you knew you could not enforce it". And that could result in further liability. regards joe -- Joe Baptista http://www.dot-god.com/ The dot.GOD Registry, Limited The Executive Plaza, Suite 908 150 West 51st Street Tel: 1 (208) 330-4173 Manhattan Island NYC 10019 USA Fax: 1 (208) 293-9773 - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog