INTERNET-DRAFT Document: draft-kahle-mail-archive-00.txt Author: Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive, brewster@archive.org Expiration: May 1, 1997 Restricting the External Archiving of Email Status of this Memo This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet Drafts. Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a ``working draft'' or ``work in progress``. To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the 1id-abstracts.txt listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ds.internic.net, nic.nordu.net, ftp.isi.edu, or munnari.oz.au. 1. Abstract This draft proposes a mail header field "Restrict:" with a defined value of "no-external-archive" that gives information to a receiving mail transport agent or mail user agent that this message should not be archived by individuals or organizations not associated with the list owner. With the increasing number of search engines that gather information and offer wide access, some writers and would like to restrict how their words are distributed. Mailing lists may begin (or have already begun) to be systematically archived for searching and historical reference. This draft is designed for mailing lists, but it can also be applied to messages in Usenet newsgroups as well. The legal issues around this are deep and difficult, and this draft does not address these legal issues. However, it would be useful to respectful mail receivers if there was a standard method for mail creators (authors or list owners) to express their desires about whether or not their mail can be archived. 2. Proposed Mail Header A general header "Restrict: " is proposed that can be used to express other restrictions than that which is proposed here. The only value proposed in this draft is "no-external-archive". The "no-external-archive" value of the "Restrict:" header could be used by mail receivers that archive messages, and is advisory only. This header is not meant to restrict the list owner, or original author's archiving or indexing of the message. It is only meant to advise individuals or organizations not associated with the list owner (such as archive sites) that the author or list owner does not want this message to appear in any archives not controlled by the author or list owner. 3. Legal Issues The presence or lack of this header on a message does not imply any legal restrictions or legal rights. 4. Security Considerations Because it is advisiory only, the "Restrict:" header may lull a sender into a false sense of security about whether or not the message will be archived in a manner that matches their intentions. No sender should assume that the presence or absence of this header will increase the security of the message in any way. 5. Author's Address Brewster Kahle Internet Archive Presidio, P.O. Box 29141 San Francisco, CA 94129 Ph: 415.561.6900 Fax: 415.561.6795 brewster@archive.org