SBC/Pacbell To Filter 90% Of alt.binaries Groups

An Anonymous Coward writes: "I received an email from PacBell.net (Pacific Bell's ISP), stating that they're transitioning their usenet services to Prodigy. They're making a few changes along the way." He excerpts from the email: "In addition, after evaluating possible copyright infringement issues, newsgroup usage and the cost of providing newsgroup access, we will no longer offer some alt.binary newsgroups. For a list of alt.binaries that will no longer be offered, please refer to our FAQ at http://global.pacbell.net/usenet_update.html.' Note that the link currently doesn't go to the right place. After telephoning SBC, I was informed that upwards of 90% of the alt.binaries.* groups are going to be blocked."

Comments

Conduit/Content

[Satai]

The idea of filtering based on content is what is important here. I was under the impression that as long as the ISP "only provided the lines" - that is, was merely a conduit to the Great Big Internet - they were allowed to get away with lots of illegal stuff going on; but as soon as they began to make value judgments based on legality, they were responsible for all further illegal activity. I could be wrong, but that's the impression I was under (sounds reasonable to me, to be honest.)

Filtering based on bandwidth isn't a new thing - this is why we have such a proliferation of Usenet Providers. Lots of ISPs filter to keep down the cost for such a relatively small 'payback' in user satisfaction/use.

But, again, I'm curious - does this make them liable for the illegal content that does get through, since they are now officialy filtering based on legality?

Fine print: too much trouble

[TomatoMan]

This is one thing that irritates me about slashdot... everybody is posting "oh my god I found this horrible thing on line 126144 of the TOS"...

Whatever, I pay $10/month and get NNTP access to some 90,000 groups and have never had a single problem... period.

So yeah, somebody in their legal department put some shitty things into their terms of service... but if it never actually means anything to me as a user then I can let it slide...

Exactly the attitude their legal department hopes you'll have. "Sign here, and here, and - HEY! DON'T READ THAT! - sign here, and here..." (Berke Breathed)

As long as you never have a problem, then you'll never have a problem. If you do, the first thing you'll have to do is find out what you agreed to, with your fingers crossed. Then don't act surprised at the results.