Search:  

 
 
   News
newer
story category Verizon Clarifies Newsgroup Changes
Will only offer 'big eight' groups starting June 24
(old news - 03:02PM Monday Jun 16 2008)
tags: business · telco
As part of last week's anti-child-porn agreement with New York's Attorney General, Time Warner Cable and Verizon agreed to take aim at newsgroups. While Time Warner Cable confirmed to me they've eliminated newsgroup access entirely, Verizon says they're simply limiting the newsgroups offered. According to the company's policy blog, starting June 24, the telco will "only offer groups in the Big 8 newsgroups hierarchies." While over 1,000 hierarchies exist, Verizon will only offer access to comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, talk, and of course the Verizon support groups. Verizon Business customers meanwhile will no longer have the ability to view newsgroup images.

Related:
  1. Exclusive: FiOS Tier Changes Coming Monday
  2. Verizon Announces New FiOS Tiers, Promotions
  3. Verizon: LTE iPhone 'Apple's Decision'
  4. FCC Greenlights Centurytel/Embarq With Wimpy Conditions
  5. AT&T Slammed For Wireless Streaming 'Double Standard'
  6. Vermont Prepares For Fairpoint Bankruptcy
  7. Verizon: Cut Your Landline To Save Money
  8. Want To Buy Hawaii Telcom?
Forums » Verizon Clarifies Newsgroup Changes
view: topics flat text 
Post a:
page: 1 · 2

Dnepr

join:2001-11-28
Tarpon Springs, FL

1 edit

No one cares about children... only money

That is bull crap and they know it....

Time to cancel service, since 60$ + 20$ for news service = bullshit.

I somehow doubt they will reduce price of their service because of this...

graysonf
Premium,MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL

Re: No one cares about children... only money

You can get awesome news for $6/month.
bgraham

join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY
·Verizon FIOS

Re: No one cares about children... only money

said by graysonf See Profile :

You can get awesome news for $6/month.
Where? Because I am ticked off now. One of the reasons I switched from OOL to Fios was because OOL had crippled their newsgroups to dial up speed.

I think I will cancel my VZ cell phone because I never use it and put the money to a third party newsgroup subscription.

Frankly I think the attorney general in NY should be forced to get VZ FIOS customers a discount from VZ since we got the shaft. Typical vote getting by the NY AG. Come election time he will be boasting about single handedly removing kiddy porn from the entire internet.

He wont mention that he just got $$ from some major ISP's because he enabled them to cut a big chunk of the internet from their service and keep the price the same.

I see this as the beginning of ISP's supplying only the part of the internet that they want to and using the old kiddy porn excuse to save themselves money.

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
said by graysonf See Profile :

You can get awesome news for $6/month.
From where?
unoriginal

join:2000-07-12
San Diego, CA
·DSL EXTREME

Re: No one cares about children... only money

If you only care about text groups and not binaries you can get from Altopia: »https://www.altopia.com/expricing.html

Their binary retention stinks (only about 9 days) but they keep about a year's worth of text posts.

antdude
A Ninja Ant
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-25

Re: No one cares about children... only money

said by unoriginal See Profile :

If you only care about text groups and not binaries you can get from Altopia: »https://www.altopia.com/expricing.html

Their binary retention stinks (only about 9 days) but they keep about a year's worth of text posts.
Binaries for me. I will probably go with EasyNews or NewsGuy since TWC RR's news/usenet server gets the axed on 6/23/2008.

N3OGH
Bear patrol must be working like a charm
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
You mean no more access to alt.nerd.obsessive?

"Need know star RM PIC"
--
Petty people are disproportionably corrupted by petty power…
maxpower

join:2006-10-09
Providence, RI
When is Cox going to come here so I can switch? I see them outside laying fiber and coax? Does anyone know how long it will be? I cant stand this Fios anymore.

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

Re: No one cares about children... only money

said by maxpower See Profile :

When is Cox going to come here so I can switch? I see them outside laying fiber and coax? Does anyone know how long it will be? I cant stand this Fios anymore.
cox is highwinds and it blows.
--
When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee
maxpower

join:2006-10-09
Providence, RI


1 edit

Re: No one cares about children... only money

said by dvd536 See Profile :

said by maxpower See Profile :

When is Cox going to come here so I can switch? I see them outside laying fiber and coax? Does anyone know how long it will be? I cant stand this Fios anymore.
cox is highwinds and it blows.
Funny you should say that. I have never had a problem with it (except the occasional "Too many connections reached" error.) Plus its free. Why complain??

ironweasel
Weezy

join:2000-09-13
Belen, NM

You would think...

..that the alt.* hierarchy would be included.

But of course, that's where all the pr0n is, and we can't have people deciding for themselves if they want to view it, now can we?
--
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake

hopeflicker
Capitalism breeds greed
Premium
join:2003-04-03
Long Beach, CA

Re: You would think...

They better shutdown their user email accounts, block all access to other country domains,and get aggressive with P2P because child porn exists everywhere, not just NG's. Welcome to China.
--
Religion does three things quite effectively: Divides people, Controls people, Deludes people.

en102
Canadian, eh?

join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA
Soon the pr0n industry will be making a profit once all backdoor pr0n access is eliminated then, right ?
--
Canada = Hollywood North

tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs:
·T-Mobile US
·RoadRunner Cable

Re: You would think...

said by en102 See Profile :

Soon the pr0n industry will be making a profit once all backdoor pr0n access is eliminated then, right ?
I believe that the legitimate porn industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Bittorrent will serve that purpose just fine.
--
"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? ...If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
-United States Secretary of Defense (1961-1968) Robert S. McNamara
Mad Mac

join:2003-03-10
Moorpark, CA
·RoadRunner Cable

said by en102 See Profile :

Soon the pr0n industry will be making a profit once all backdoor pr0n access is eliminated then, right ?
Backdoor porn access?

Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
united state


1 edit
said by ironweasel See Profile :

..that the alt.* hierarchy would be included.

But of course, that's where all the pr0n is, and we can't have people deciding for themselves if they want to view it, now can we?
It's also where all the content that was never meant to be on newsgroups in the first place is. People can argue all they want. Newsgroups were not intended to be used as a software distribution method which is the specific reason why other methods were created.

ISP's and newsproviders can't afford the TB's of bandwidth it takes along with the storage hardware. 99% of the content people are downloading from the Alt.* groups is pirated material. You can find various charts online from ISP's and newshosts that show the groups with the most activity. One of the groups that is always in the top is Alt.Binaries.Boneless since it's nothing more then a swedish dump channel for pirated material.

Now as an ISP when less than 5% of your userbase uses a service, and out of that 5% roughly 4% are using it solely to download mass quantities of pirated material what do you expect them to do? It brings in no profit whatsoever, the child porn excuse is just lip service, its a marketing thing.

For all of you that are saying that you will leave your ISP if they do this...your ISP pretty much hopes you leave as well, I can 100% guarantee you that.

In the not too distant future you will not find a single ISP that does it's own newshosting (if they offer it at all), they will all just partner with a true newshosting company and you get xx GB/mo, or are rate limited to accomplish the same thing.

Trust me, if you leave your ISP due to newsgroups they will not miss you, nor will the next ISP you go to miss you when they cancel their newsgroups as well.

P.S. For anyone who tries to claim they are using the groups for legitimate communication, then you have no need for your ISP to carry the alt groups as there are many free web providers that carry them in full text and simply strip out all binaries and pirated material.
SilverSurfer

join:2007-08-19

Re: You would think...

said by Qumahlin See Profile :

ISP's and newsproviders can't afford the TB's of bandwidth it takes along with the storage hardware [...]
Once the tiered pricing/capping/throttling is firmly in place, what will be your argument then?
wierdo

join:2001-02-16
Tulsa, OK
·Future Nine Corpor..
·Teliax VOIP

Apparently you do not realize that there is far more to alt than alt.binaries. Or that plenty of legitimate material is traded in certain alt.binaries groups. Or that it's cheaper for an ISP to receive one copy of a 600MB file than it is 12 or 1200.

Personally? I have no problem with an ISP that doesn't want to take alt.binaries groups. It's a bright line delimiter that eliminates by far the largest amount of bandwidth, while still allowing unfettered access to almost all the actual discussion that takes place.

I have yet to find an ISP run news service that's been usable for mass binary downloading since sometime in the mid 90s, back when most games were distributed on floppies, so all it's doing is improving the more important part of usenet anyway.
--
It's wierdo, not weirdo. Yes, I know that's not the 'proper' spelling of the similar english language word.

legendNYC
Premium
join:2003-06-04
Jamaica, NY
·Verizon Online DSL

From Mercury News:
»www.mercurynews.com/businesshead···_9599982

"From a free-speech perspective, I'm more disturbed by Sprint and Verizon's decision to stop serving up Alt groups than I am by Time Warner Cable's plan to cease hosting all newsgroups. Alt, short for "alternative," is the designation for groups that discuss issues that aren't allowed in the more mainstream categories such as comp (computers), soc (social issues), and talk (typically religion and politics). Alt includes groups dedicated to sex and drugs, and is reportedly where Cuomo's staff found 88 newsgroups containing child porn. But the vast majority of the material in the Alt hierarchy has nothing to do with child pornography."
lvlorpheus

join:2008-02-17
Eureka Springs, AR

commercially available newsgroup

"We are not blocking access to either newsgroups or Web sites operated by others. Customers who still want to access newsgroups that are not on this list can do so through commercially available newsgroup services."

»policyblog.verizon.com/PolicyBlo···ice.aspx

robertpil
Premium
join:2005-02-19
Barnegat, NJ


1 edit

Re: commercially available newsgroup

said by lvlorpheus See Profile :

"We are not blocking access to either newsgroups or Web sites operated by others. Customers who still want to access newsgroups that are not on this list can do so through commercially available newsgroup services."

»policyblog.verizon.com/PolicyBlo···ice.aspx
And do you think Verizon is not going to keep close watch on this ? Their updated TOS clearly states that they will be watching what you download whether it be from them or a commercially available Usenet provider.

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ

Scumbags

In my opinion, the people at Verizon who made this decision are a bunch of scumbags, and you can tell them I said so.
EPS

join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA

Re: Scumbags

The people at Verizon, or the New York Attorney General's office for forcing the ISPs to restrict newsgroups?

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL

Re: Scumbags

said by EPS See Profile :

The people at Verizon, or the New York Attorney General's office for forcing the ISPs to restrict newsgroups?
And that applies to groups like nyc.transit and alt.cellular.verizon how?
EPS

join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA

Re: Scumbags

You'd have to look at what the AG wanted... at this point, I don't know if it was that the AG wanted all newsgroups blocked and this was a compromise, or if the AG just wanted some obvious bad ones blocked and Verizon and TWC used it as an excuse to cut a ton to save some money.

MoeDumb
I already have a Messiah.
Premium
join:2002-09-23
Yep, an arm twist by the AG to get the ISPs to cough up $$$ and block binaries in exchange for . . . what? Immunity from prosecution for being a 'gateway' would be my guess.

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ

Re: Scumbags

They're blocking a lot more than just binaries.
--
02NH NORMAL HALT
rahvin112

join:2002-05-24
Sandy, UT

Re: Scumbags

A LOT more than binaries. The Alt hierarchy contains 99% of the political, self help, support, science groups and "free speech" groups. To kill 88 groups with suspect illegal material they are killing 10's of thousands of groups devoted to open discussion. Although I'm sure the right wings are happy that alt.talk.origins is going to be blocked. Can't have pesky facts out there.

R4M0N
Brazilian Soccer Ownz Joo

join:2000-10-04
Glen Allen, VA
·Comcast

Re: Scumbags

said by rahvin112 See Profile :

Although I'm sure the right wings are happy that alt.talk.origins is going to be blocked. Can't have pesky facts out there.
Was that last part really necessary?

Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
united state

said by rahvin112 See Profile :

A LOT more than binaries. The Alt hierarchy contains 99% of the political, self help, support, science groups and "free speech" groups. To kill 88 groups with suspect illegal material they are killing 10's of thousands of groups devoted to open discussion. Although I'm sure the right wings are happy that alt.talk.origins is going to be blocked. Can't have pesky facts out there.
All of which are freely accessible via the web. No need for your ISP to provide them. Not to mention most of the web interfaces are far better then the actual newsgroup (readers) primarily because the web interface is actually tailored around...newsgroups...not binary downloads.
--
Forum Posts:7500

tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs:

Re: Scumbags

I take it you've never used Agent Newsreader...

LiamJunket
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Ocean City, NJ
·Comcast

You can subscribe to a newsgroup service other than Verizons. The agreement doesn't have Verizon blocking them. So, if you want to get your porn and music and movies from newsgroups, you will have to pay for the privilege.
--
My BLOG .. .. Internet News .. .. My Web Page

dvd536
as Mr. Pink as they come
Premium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ

Re: Scumbags

said by LiamJunket See Profile :

You can subscribe to a newsgroup service other than Verizons. The agreement doesn't have Verizon blocking them. So, if you want to get your porn and music and movies from newsgroups, you will have to pay for the privilege.
What ISP provided news service DOESN'T suck anyway?
--
When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL

Re: Scumbags

said by dvd536 See Profile :

said by LiamJunket See Profile :

You can subscribe to a newsgroup service other than Verizons. The agreement doesn't have Verizon blocking them. So, if you want to get your porn and music and movies from newsgroups, you will have to pay for the privilege.
What ISP provided news service DOESN'T suck anyway?
Verizon's doesn't suck. At least not until a week from now.

tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs:
ironically, Verizon and TimeWarnerCable's were the best of all ISPs...

MoeDumb
I already have a Messiah.
Premium
join:2002-09-23

said by rahvin112 See Profile :

I'm sure the right wings are happy that alt.talk.origins is going to be blocked. Can't have pesky facts out there.
Just a FYI... the NY A.G. doing this is a left wing Democrat.
--
Who is Jesus? and Why it matters (to YOU).

tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs:
·T-Mobile US
·RoadRunner Cable

Re: Scumbags

said by MoeDumb See Profile :

said by rahvin112 See Profile :

I'm sure the right wings are happy that alt.talk.origins is going to be blocked. Can't have pesky facts out there.
Just a FYI... the NY A.G. doing this is a left wing Democrat.
It's fairly well known that far left and far right wingers are one-in-the-same. Both want the world to submit to their personal morals, and they'll use any force necessary to achieve those ends.
--
"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? ...If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
-United States Secretary of Defense (1961-1968) Robert S. McNamara
stew

join:2006-10-02
Carrollton, TX

Re: Scumbags

And would those morals include screwing hookers like their "previous" governor or the present one who's already admitted to having an affair while married????

tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs:

Re: Scumbags

judging by the trespasses of right wing Republicans and left wing Democrats: absolutely. Hypocrisy is an art perfected by the political extremists.

Imtumescent

@verizon.net

Cuomo sucks co*k. They are not eliminating childporn, just upping the price. Verizon should give a $25 discount to their customers for cutting serice. We can get our porn elsewhere. Maybe we should all organize and threaten to drop service. FIOS and DSL are verizons biggest gamble for their longevity.

antdude
A Ninja Ant
Premium,VIP
join:2001-03-25

said by Bobcat See Profile :

In my opinion, the people at Verizon who made this decision are a bunch of scumbags, and you can tell them I said so.
Lots of companies are like this. TWC RR will be killing its usenet/newsgroup service.

norelpref

@verizon.net
roger that. I am stunned. fucking assholes.

Imtumescent

@verizon.net
I agree. We should start a class action lawsuit. Verizon charged us for the inclusion of newsgroups in our service. Now they removed it. Its like bait and switch.

Cabal
Premium
join:2007-01-21
Boston, MA

Verizon's answer to throttling

What a coincidence that this frees up countless Gb of bandwidth...
--
Would you trust a brain surgeon with two years' experience?

See 12 replies to this post

Dogfather
Premium
join:2007-12-26
Laguna Hills, CA

Show us the money

Since they're going to save money killing off the binaries groups, where's the discount on our service?

Obviously this has nothing to do with child porn and everything to do with killing ALL binaries groups to save dough.

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL

Re: Show us the money

said by Dogfather See Profile :

Since they're going to save money killing off the binaries groups, where's the discount on our service?
Ha, ha. Verizon just raised my rate by $2 per month, a 6.7% increase.
--
02NH NORMAL HALT
sancraig

join:2003-11-05
Saint Louis, MO

Am i wrong?

After reading the article it seems like anyone can still access the alt.* by having an account with someone like giganews?

Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
united state

Re: Am i wrong?

correct, they are just dropping their newshosting services. You can also access the groups completely free via google providing your looking to use them for legit reasons and not binaries

hobgoblin
Sortof Agoblin
Premium
join:2001-11-25
Orchard Park, NY
clubs:

Dumb Pipe

I have seen many times on this site requests for ISP's to provide a dumb Pipe. Surely removing newsgroups is getting closer to that.

This is a positive thing..isnt it?

Hob
--
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

morbo
Complete Your Transaction

join:2002-01-22
00000
clubs:

Re: Dumb Pipe

it's like energy market deregulation. sounds good in theory, but do it piece meal and you end up screwing everyone and some giant corporation then goes bankrupt.

anony00

@verizon.net
In theory that sounds great. But the question becomes, are we going to see a lower monthly bill because of this? All signs point to NO.

It'll just be extra profit on their income statement.

dnsredirect

@rr.com
ok

I want a dumb pipe from time warner. ONE WHERE I DONT NEED TO OPT OUT OF THE DNS redirect that company does.
bgraham

join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY

Email restrictions will be next?

I am sure a lot of hi res dirty pictures get emailed, so now they can save more money and ban attachments over say 20k and save a ton of money on email servers.

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL

Re: Email restrictions will be next?

said by bgraham See Profile :

I am sure a lot of hi res dirty pictures get emailed, so now they can save more money and ban attachments over say 20k and save a ton of money on email servers.
Why not just kill the email servers entirely? After all, they cost money to operate, too.
--
02NH NORMAL HALT
EPS

join:2008-02-13
Hingham, MA

Re: Email restrictions will be next?

Far more people use ISP E-mail than ISP Newsgroups, though, and political pressure from the NY AG is not going against e-mail (yet?)

tschmidt
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
·Verizon Online DSL
·Fairpoint Communic..

How many customer's are affected?

I'm sorry to see them scale back Newsgroups but what percentage of their customers actually use them?

I for one spend a lot less time then I used to because signal-to-noise ratio is so high as to make them almost useless. Give me a moderated site like BBR any day over the junk that contaminates any interesting topic on Usenet.

/tom

KoolMoe
Aw Man
Premium
join:2001-02-14
Annapolis, MD
clubs:
·Verizon FIOS
·Speakeasy

Re: How many customer's are affected?

'Zactly. I was a pretty frequent visitor of a variety of public newsgroups BackInTheDay. The past few years, the only ones I've visited are fairly private and/or specialized. I really prefer newsreaders for such things over most clunky webforums, but there's just no attraction anymore for the old-school, noisy groups...
KM
Randall_Lind

join:2004-01-24
Saint Petersburg, FL

if no porn on TimeWarner/Brighthouse then you get nothing

Reason I went to Giganews only thing on Brighthouse network you could get is porn everything else was incomplete on their usenet feed.
Zoder

join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL

I don't get it

The articles I've read that quote the AG's office say that most of the source material comes out of Eastern Europe. These actions are going to do nothing to stop those children from being exploited and abused. So why was Cuomo's office so gung ho about this?

Is he running for reelection this fall or for higher office?

Imtumecent

@verizon.net

Re: I don't get it

Hes running for governor in 2010. I was at a dinner in Manhattan.

n2jtx

join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

microsoft.*

I am on OOL so this does not effect me but what about the various corporate support groups such as the microsoft.* hierarchy?
--
I support the right to keep and arm bears.

Bobcat
Cablevision sucks donkey balls
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL

Re: microsoft.*

said by n2jtx See Profile :

I am on OOL so this does not effect me but what about the various corporate support groups such as the microsoft.* hierarchy?
Gone.
--
02NH NORMAL HALT

pog
Premium
join:2004-06-03
Kihei, HI
·Hawaiian Telcom

Re: microsoft.*

Microsoft has had their own news server since that hierarchy started (I think): msnews.microsoft.com

You can also access via the web: »www.microsoft.com/library/galler···gStarted

Assault

join:2001-12-14
Garland, TX

WOW a whole 8 days retention!

sure am going to miss that, in fact I demand $20 dollars off my monthly bill
macaholic
Premium
join:2003-08-31
Jackson Heights, NY

notice how anti child porn law just becomes anti-porn law...

this is why people are rightfully suspicious of these kind of laws... on the surface they seem reasonable. But the actual effect is far more reaching.... big god loving brother.
--
"You don't subject minority rights to a referendum." Justice Minister Irwin Cotler of Canada

old_dawg
"I Know Noting..."

join:2001-09-22
Westminster, MD

Just curious...

...that all this "sturm und drang" from the AG of the same state where the former AG and former
governor had to resign over that small matter of the prostitution ring ?. Nothing like a new scent to draw the (media) hounds away, kind of like launching cruise missiles at aspirin factories, eh?.
--
"Our network engineers are aware of the problem..."
ciid

join:2006-12-05
Baltimore, MD

How to kill a few mosquitoes with a 20 megaton nuke....

Ive bean useing verizon DSL for over 7 years now and i have to say this is the the most retarded move ive seen verizon pull unless i count the overselling of my line to were im lucky to get 70% of my 1.5 Mbps speed.I would agree anyone into child pornography should be shot in the head or locked behind bars forever but one company limiting there usenet acess changes nothing on this front.Maybe after they see a massive spike in off-network traffic they will bring back real usenet acess and target specific groups that acctualy do deal with child porn.
surferguy73

join:2008-06-17
united state

Fight for fair usenet

Let's band together and do something about this. Let's trigger a class action lawsuit against Verizon and the NYS AG's office.

I'm serious. We're all sitting here fuming about this, but it doesn't seem like anyone in the outside world is actually doing anything about it, so why don't we step up and do it ourselves?

I'm not a lawyer or anything, but I'm pretty sure this whole thing could be construed as a free speech (or free speech access) violation at best or an anti-trust/collusion or contract breach case at worst. If we approached the ACLU, EFF, etc, they'd probably be willing to help, that is, if we get off our collective rears and demonstrate that we care enough about this.

It wouldn't take much effort to get the ball rolling.

Talk to friends, float/sign petitions, dash off a quick email to the ACLU, drop a paragraph to your favorite local newspaper editor/reporter,(and CC local and national elected officials), print out and paper simple flyers around(or in) your neighborhood mailboxes, make just enough noise about how this action is unfair, how it's deceptive, misdirected, profiteering, how it might end up doing more to help than to hurt pedophiles, and then, we might gain some traction.

If we each work together to fight this raw deal and expose it to the public for what it is, we could get fair usenet access back for everyone.

Are ya with me?

If you are, don't just nod. Stand up and take action.
LastSurvivor

join:2008-01-02
Toledo, OH

Cool

Well I just got 3 copies of these in my email (don't know why they sent 3 copies, best to make I read it since I use their newserver).....

Dear Verizon Online Customer,

As a Verizon Newsgroup service user, we wanted to let you know about some important changes that we will soon be making to our Newsgroup service.

On June 24, 2008, we will be modifying our Newsgroup offerings to only offer groups in the Big-8 Newsgroup hierarchies, which are listed below. The 0.verizon.* newsgroup hierarchy will also continue to be available. Users will not be able to post or download from any other newsgroups using our Newsgroup service.

comp.*
humanities.*
misc.*
news.*
rec.*
sci.*
soc.*
talk.*

More details regarding the Big 8 newsgroup hierarchies is available at: »www.big-8.org/.

This change will not affect your Internet access service. If you would like to subscribe to newsgroups other than those we offer, you will need to subscribe to a separate commercial news service. Please note that your use of any such service is still subject to our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

There are no changes required to your software, but you will need to unsubscribe from all Newsgroups other than the Big 8 hierarchies and the 0.verizon.* hierarchy noted above. The following link explains how to subscribe and unsubscribe in Outlook Express:

»support.microsoft.com/kb/171190

IMPORTANT: If you continue to subscribe to unsupported newsgroups, you may experience poor computer performance and slow throughput speeds. Failure to unsubscribe may also interfere with the functioning of the Verizon network or use of the network by other Verizon users, which is a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.

We appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to serve you in the future.

Sincerely,

Verizon Online
---------------

I love the part of 'failure to unsubscribe may interfere...blah blah...violation of the AUP'

BK Verizon User

@verizon.net

Just got same e-mail

I knew knew knew when I read the child-pr0n thing last week that this was an excuse to shut down Usenet/Newsgroups - I remember a few years ago when Verizon removed the dutch groups that had countless posts to free up some space, this is clearly a $$$ decision in the background and perhaps pressure from RIAA and MPAA but what about this line of the e-mail

------------
IMPORTANT: If you continue to subscribe to unsupported newsgroups, you may experience poor computer performance and slow throughput speeds. Failure to unsubscribe may also interfere with the functioning of the Verizon network or use of the network by other Verizon users, which is a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.
-------------

Does this mean if I d'l thur Easynews and jack up the bandwidth they're gonna cut me off??!?!? Or send me a cease and desist or whatever letter....I've been with them for 10 years I think and I'm a little annoyed right now.
bgraham

join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY
·Verizon FIOS

Re: Just got same e-mail

I guess what they are saying is now that their newsgroups are gone, they don't want anyone using other newsgroup services.

Their excuse if you get caught will be that you are interfering with their network functionality.

If they do that to me I will dump FIOS ASAP.

magnus

@rr.com

Re: Just got same e-mail

I dumpted and went back to roadrunner
Forums » Verizon Clarifies Newsgroup Changespage: 1 · 2


Sunday, 05-Jul 15:24:55 Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Hosting by www.nac.net - DSL,Hosting & Co-lo | feedback | contact
over 9.5 years online! © 1999-2009 dslreports.com.