Who Owns Your E-mail? → Whose communications are they??

The ISP is not the owner of the communications in question. They are the provider of a connection to the Internet. They do not own the content of email that traffics across their servers. All email remains the property of the sender until delivery is made to the intended recipient, whereupon it becomes the property of said recipient. The ISP is never the owner of the communication.

If the ISP is not being paid, then the ISP should, upon warning given allowing a reasonable time for the subscriber to become current, bounce as undeliverable all email directed to the arrears subscriber back to the sender(s). If the ISP terminates the account for any reason, including non-payment, the email should be bounced as undeliverable unless the terminated subscriber requests forwarding. If the terminated subscriber requests forwarding, then the ISP's interest may be served by maintaining this point of contact with the terminated subscriber for purposes of negotiation, litigation and collection. Otherwise, all email addressed to the terminated subscriber's mailbox should be bounced back to the sender(s) as undeliverable.

To intercept email and hold it for ransom is at best reprehensible, and ought to be, in the public interest, illegal. The interception and witholding of the email of the terminated subscriber does not mitigate the ISP's damage and may, in fact, unwarrantedly injure the terminated subscriber.

The merits of the ISP's claim for un-billed, overdue and unpaid fees is irrelevant to the issue of ownership, interception and ransoming of email.

Ain't gettin' paid? Bounce the mail, else it's extortion.

No one is questioning the fact that the ISP is not the owner of the communications in question. The ISP is not the owner of the communication, but they ARE the owner of the mailbox.

The ISP never deleted the communications. They never read the communications. They didn't touch the actual messages. But its their mailbox.

Most email server software requires you to buy a license to use 1 or a 1000 mailboxes for ISP use.

You wrote "then the ISP should, upon warning given allowing a reasonable time for the subscriber to become current, bounce as undeliverable all email directed to the arrears subscriber back to the sender(s). "

Why should the ISP be required to take further action? It wastes more time and money on a problem. And money was the problem to begin with. ISP operations are cut-throat, skeleton crew, budget restrictive operations by their competitive nature.

You also wrote, "To intercept email and hold it for ransom is at best reprehensible, and ought to be, in the public interest, illegal."

Who's intercepting mail. The mail was delivered to the mailbox account that was setup. The mailbox belongs to the ISP. It lives on their network, on their servers. They pay for the domain registration of the domain, they pay for the maintenance of DNS MX records, they pay for the software, etc. The subscriber does not pay for anything.

Who's holding it for ransom? There is no ransom being demanded. The money that is in question is for PAST services which money was never rendered for, even though services were rendered. Its not like the ISP sent her bits and pieces of her email.

A ransom implicates money being demanded for an exchange of persons or goods and/or services. That's something that happens in the PRESENT or FUTURE (if the subscriber pays in advance). You don't give up the hostage or holdings first and then demand a ransom.

So Ain't going to pay for the services, else don't signup for an account.

carter should have called the isp after a few months of not recieveing any bills, then the isp should have worked out an arangment to recover a % of lost income since the billing dept screwed up.

and since the aggreement was broke the isp should have closed out all services related to the account.

the provider i worked for would keep the data on the server for 30 days after an account was closed and deny incomeing mail. just in case the customer needed to recover the data.
any service provider must have a well coverd terms of service

"That is not an ISPs responsibility. If you are kicked out of your house by me, should I track you down and send all your mail to you? Should I wait outside and tell all your freinds that you have relocated to a new address?"

No, you wouldn't be obligated to track me down, but you also wouldn't have the right to take all my mail and keep it till I paid you something either. Its simple and called "return to sender" That would be illegal. And Isp's shouldn't be able to do it either.
I have to agree that yes, doing business like that by email isn't exactly smart and I don't think she deserves money out of it(and definately needs to pay what she owes them), but I also don't think ISP's should be allowed to ransom mail and would like to see some regulation put in place regarding this.

The ISP may own or lease IPs or mailbox server space which it resells or leases out, but they DO NOT OWN THE PERSONA the mailbox represents. The mailbox account was created by assigning a unique user name and password to receive email intended for the specific subscriber. The ISP is perpetrating a fraud when it assumes the identity, or cloaks itself in the persona, of the suspended or terminated subscriber in order to intercept the email intended for the addressee rather than simply bouncing the email back to the sender. The ISP is extorting the suspended or terminated subscriber when it refuses to hand over the intercepted (read confiscated) email to the subscriber unless a ransom is paid. The fact that the ransom demanded is the same amount the ISP alleges it may be entitled to for previously provided services does not change the fact that the email was obtained by fraud and any amount demanded for its release is ransom. It also does not mitigate the ISP's loss, but does create potential loss to the subscriber that is entirely unnecessary and punitive. This is especially true if the account was cancelled by either party in advance of the interception and withholding of the email by the ISP.

The recourse for the ISP due earned fees that remain unpaid is negotiation, mediation, arbitration or litigation.