Email system provision is unregulated in the UK.

wealdroam

Vofs007, wont simple contract law meet your needs?

You agree with your supplier what level of service you require and how much you are prepared to pay for that service.

If they fail to provide the agreed level of service, then I am sure H.M. Courts Service will provide the 'regulation' you are looking for.

securityguy

vofs007 wrote: »

The requirement is that regulation needs to be put in place so that if users sign up to a regulated email system supplier they can expect a defined level of service. At the moment this does not exist.
Such regulation is possible and can implemented.

If you pay, you get an SLA. There are plenty of commercial providers who will give you contractual guarantees and pay compensation and even, if your pockets are deep enough to pay the subscription, liquidated damages.

But if you're getting a free service, you get best efforts. End of.

What you appear to want is a free service with compensation for when it fails. Which you clearly are not going to get: why would anyone operate such a service? Why would I not make a comfortable living by signing up for 100,000 email accounts and claiming a pound for each of them every time there's a problem?

I've been on both sides of negotiations over ISP contracts where there are hefty LDs involved in failure, and tight SLAs defining when those LDs are paid. If you want 100% availability with a grand an hour in compensation if it breaks, any number of enterprise ISPs will be happy to send a pre-sales guy around to talk numbers. But they'll be _big_ numbers.

InsideInsurance

vofs007 wrote: »

It is about the regulating of providers of email systems. For most users emails are an essential means of communicating for carrying out normal living activities. At the moment there is no statutory protection for users if they are deprived of their email service by a provider or the provider fails to provide a satisfactory service.

Nor is there statutory SLAs/protection about couriers, supermarkets, mobiles, hairdressers, clothing shops, printers, IT companies, cobblers, drain cleaners, gardeners, window cleaners etc.

You can of cause choose a provider that gives you an SLA on what service you will receive with contractual implications if they fail to meet them. Just like some of the above. Alternatively you can go for a cheaper/ free one and accept there are consequences for your choices.

We dont need to live in such a nanny state that people are stripped of the choice of cheap & cheerful or full fat and you pay for it on everything.

cookie365

vofs007 wrote: »

I am afraid there is a misunderstanding about what the problem is.
The problem is not about regulating emails. It is about the regulating of providers of email systems. For most users emails are an essential means of communicating for carrying out normal living activities. At the moment there is no statutory protection for users if they are deprived of their email service by a provider or the provider fails to provide a satisfactory service.
The requirement is that regulation needs to be put in place so that if users sign up to a regulated email system supplier they can expect a defined level of service. At the moment this does not exist.
Such regulation is possible and can implemented.

If you want guaranteed uptime etc, go to an email provider that offers it as part of the contract. There are plenty that do.

All that statutory regulation will do is put the prices up for everyone, regardless of whether or not they need the service level that you apparently do.

Nilrem

IIRC you can get email with a defined level of service.
Unfortunately it tends to cost you money as it's usually part of a business package, and even with that you are at the mercy of every other email provider (for example it's no use your email service being up 100% of the time and wonderfully reliable if the people contacting you have poor email).

Personally the system as it is, although it has it's flaws (the spam problem being a major one), tends to work, especially given the literally thousands of options you have for choosing an email provider.

Personally I tend to have my own domain with email included, which tends to be very reliable (especially as I can adjust spam filter settings myself, rather than rely on my ISP, or hotmail/gmail to decide what level to go for).

vofs007

Most of the posts above are second guessing wrongly what they think I am looking for in regulation.
A bit of education seems to be called for.
1. Communications in the UK are regulated by the "Communications Act 2003"
2. The regulator is OFCOM.
3. What OFCOM does is stated below (quote from the OFCOM website):
We regulate the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.
We make sure that people in the UK get the best from their communications services and are protected from scams and sharp practices, while ensuring that competition can thrive.

If postal services and mobiles are subject to regulation surely something as important as e-mail merits similar user protection.

Once we have agreed that regulation is beneficial we can then sensibly discuss what benefits we would like from it.

securityguy

Fix line telecoms and postal services have a universal service obligation, which is one of the main things OFCOM regulate.

TV, radio and mobile phones require use of a public asset, the bandwidth in the wireless spectrum, in exchange for which they accept regulation.

Email does none of these things. Most of the operators are outside the UK (indeed, is there a free or low-cost email service that is in the UK?), don't have a USO, don't use public assets. Regulating service would be a massive brake on innovation, while being entirely pointless in protecting customers.

cookie365

vofs007 wrote: »

Once we have agreed that regulation is beneficial we can then sensibly discuss what benefits we would like from it.

Once we have agreed that vofs007 owes cookie365 £250,000 we can then sensibly discuss payment methods.

esuhl

Another thing that is completely unregulated is communication between two tin cans and a piece of string.

If we're looking at regulating email, where customers can freely negotiate appropriate SLA terms and service charges, and where there is ample competition from many different providers, and where an individual user could quite easily set up their own email servers... Why not regulate every form of communication...?

After all, with two tin cans and a piece of string, you're completely locked-in to using the same service provider, and even the distance of telecommunication is precisely fixed, requiring a new line to relay messages to different locations.

Am I the only one to recognise the menace to free society that is exemplified by our laissez-faire tin-can-telephone laws?! There's no point trying to fix the email system until we've got the basics right!

getmore4less

Uxb wrote: »

I've always said on forums everywhere that I can see ISP's ditching their email facilities like they have ditched their free webspace facilities mostly. It must be a real load of aggro running email servers for them, incoming spam catching, virus checking, compromised customer accounts pumping out spam.... and the rest.

VM have moved in that direction to reduce their aggro.

They now use the Googlemail platform.