I'm sorry to tell you this, but "Gilmore's Rights" have not been infringed. Gilmore signed up with an ISP, Verio. Verio states in its conditions of service that open SMTP relays are prohibited. It's rather like complaining that your bank is infringing on your rights because it won't let you open up a hot-dog stand in their foyer.

Verio decided that open SMTP relays are not a service they wish to provide. If you want to run an open SMTP relay, then you go somewhere other than Verio - somewhere that is willing to put up with (and presumably charge you for) the extra hassle that is likely to result from running an open relay. Verio is not the government, so Gilmore has no right to do anything outside of what is allowed in your contract. Maybe Gilmore is right that an ISP should be more like a pipe, and maybe that would be something from which we'd all benefit. But then, with people deciding to not talk to certain sites because they are spam sources, and with IP addresses remaining, essentially, the property of the ISP through which they are routed, an ISP has to protect its resources against loss of value. Having an IP range blocked from traffic to much of the Internet is a strong loss of value, and one can understand why an ISP might not want that to happen.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/173/5037#5037