Level 3 has started blocking traffic from reaching certain servers or areas the company finds involved in criminal activity, notes the Wall Street Journal. After beginning to consider the move three years ago, Level 3 officially started cutting notable chunks off the Internet three months ago if the company decides they're engaged in notable criminal activity.

The move is a controversial one with no shortage of critics, who complain the practice could hurt legitimate users and businesses. Since much criminal activity uses botnets comprised of "innocent" users (assuming you call people that fail to secure their machines innocent), blanket shut downs could result in a notable amount of collateral damage.

Still, it's a decision Level 3 believes is worth the risk:

quote:

---

At a rate of about once every few weeks, the carrier is shutting down questionable traffic that doesn’t involve any of its clients. When the source of the trouble is hard to pinpoint, it often casts a wide net and intercepts traffic from large blocks of Internet addresses.

---

It's also controversial in that many transit operators believe their role is simply connection, and they don't want to encourage governments or companies eager to have connectivity providers policing the Internet.