AT&T and AOL Block Child Porn Newsgroups > Good

reply to Jodokast96

Re: Good

reply to danclan
Then please correct me if you can, as all of your posts on this seem to be nothing more than raving rants. There's nothing I hate more than misunderstanding a subject like this.

Simple. They farm out their newsgroup service to third parties. Just like every other ISP. So it is not on their servers. Last I heard Highwinds was handling the majority of ISP (not a fan of Higwinds).

Ok, fine, but they are still selling it as their service, which does make them culpable. What brought attention to them is that they accepted responsibility for such things in their TOS, yet did nothing about it when called on it. Which put them in breach of the TOS (that so many companies will crucify customers for doing), and opened them up to the deceptive business practices. Absolutely Cuomo took the easy, high-profile way to "eliminate" kiddie porn, but he really did have Verizon by the balls. There was nothing for them to gain by fighting it.

NO FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST IT DOESN'T MAKE THEM LIABLE OF CULPABLE. USENET is INTERNATIONAL.

Its call safe harbor/common carrier. They are merely the conduit of the information not the creator or poster.

The US Law backs them up and has been validated in many court cases already.

Usenet providers are NOT liable for the content that traverses or resides their servers.

All this noise about this is just that NOISE. There was NO TOS violated.

IF that were the case all porn links or ANY objectionable material would be have be blocked because in some way shape or form it resides on a carriers servers/routers/proxies.

This is all grand standing. There is NO merit in his charges of these carriers providing KP to folks. Its categorically untrue but makes for good press.

These cries of "its all about the children" ring hollow these days when all these press releases after being analyzed show that insignificant amounts of alleged child porn were found.

reply to Jodokast96
Jodokast96

Again, NO. They contract the third parties to provide a legal service. IF that third party does something illegal, then you have to go after them, not the ISP. This is not a good idea for the ISPs becuase it sets precedent that they are responsible for what is being transmitted over their bandwidth. That opens a huge can of worms.

reply to danclan
Next we'll see ISP's that block torrent sites.

what's next? your youtube?

reply to Lazlow

Jodokast96

Could you post a link to the TOS you are looking at. I could not see where it would be applicable to Usenet in the version I was looking at.

Section 2k under the AUP, which went back at least as far as March.

Again, please post a LINK. There is no section 2k in the version I am looking at.

Here is the one I am looking at:

»www.corp.att.com/aup/

Ok, sorry there. I was specifically referring to Verizon, as they were one of first to start doing this. So for other ISP's, there may be differences.

reply to Lazlow
However, this may be, though thin, enough for Cuomo to twist their arms in light of what other ISP's have already done,

quote:

---

Offensive or Threatening Material or Content
AT&T IP related Services shall not be used to host, post, transmit, or re-transmit any content or material that is threatening, harassing, obscene, indecent, pornographic, hateful, malicious, racist, defamatory, libelous, treasonous, excessively violent or promotes the use of violence, or provides instruction, information or assistance in causing or carrying out violence against any government, organization, group or individual, or provides guidance, information or assistance with respect to causing damage or security breaches to AT&T's network or to the network of any other IP related Service provider.

---

Like I've said all along, it may be thin, but there is no real gain to them to fight it, either. It was not, and never was, an essential part of their service.

reply to Jodokast96
"transmit, or re-transmit "

That would be to post, not to download.

"AT&T IP related Services shall not be used to host..." Again, thin, but enough to avoid the hassle. If they did fight it, and lost, then everyone would be complaining about whatever new fee would be tacked onto their bill to pay for it. When you look at what it costs them to provide it and what it would cost them to defend it, plus what it may have cost them if they lost vs. what they lose by dropping it (very little to nothing since they aren't the first), why wouldn't they? AT&T was certainly on more solid ground than Verzion aparently was, but once Verizon, Sprint, and TWC caved, the gates were open. I'm not saying it doesn't suck, or that it is even totally right, just that there was some responsibility on their part. In matters like this, it's never the criminals that really lose (just look at gun laws).

"just that there was some responsibility on their part. "

The rest I might give you, but not the above quote. This is the part that WILL get them into trouble. IF they start down this road it will set the precedent that they are responsible, which they have always maintained their common carrier status (dumb pipe). It could be argued that they are doing this in an effort to say that they were forced out of the common carrier status, in order for them to justify tampering with video sources not coming from them (competition). With NetFlix download offerings doing so well, and the huge number of other video sources available know (and on the horizon), this is a far more likely scenario.

I won't argue at all about precedent setting. But by stating they would take some sort of action against such uses (more so Verizon than AT&T), they did open themselves up to some responsibility. By not taking action where they said they would, they have in essence violated the TOS themselves. Technically, the AG is just ensuring they follow their own TOS. There is still no actual law making them responsible for the content, just their own contract with their customers. Hell, in a few years, they could probably just turn around and change it back, but you know that will never happen. One thing this has really shown is that TOS's really do suck for everybody.

reply to hopeflicker