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Canadian Telco Admits to Blocking Union's Website
Nogami_Saeko writes "Canadian telephone company and ISP "Telus" has admitted that they are blocking all attempts to access a website set up by the employee's union (who is currently "on-strike" or "locked-out", depending on your point of view). Currently no customers of the Telco's ADSL service (or any other ADSL service provider who leases lines) can access the union's webpage. Is it reasonable for an ISP to censor webpages they don't agree with during contract negotiations?"
These companies are providing what is essentially a public service, Internet access. They should not interfere with the content/data itself. Period.
.: Max Romantschuk
Telus is pretty heavy handed at times, but I can see them getting slapped pretty quickly by the authorities. *If* there is illegal activity going on on the website, then they should have followed the proper channels to get it removed properly. Given Telus' attitude towards the ongoing contract negotiation process, it is not at all surprising that they would do something like this.
I do hope it doesn't last. Dirty pool indeed.
tinfoilmedia
Competing service? IS there one? I know that the only way I can get broadband where I live is through Comcast. I don't have a choice. If I want broadband, I get Comcast.
/usr/games/fortune
If you enter into a contract with someone to supply a service and they stop providing that service or inhibit it, you don't just "go somewhere else" you sue the bastards for breach of contract, and/or recommend to others that they don't use that service.
How we know is more important than what we know.
If I have a contract with an ISP that promises me Internet Access then I expect to receive access to the whole Internet, nto for them to hide bits that they didn't want me to see. If I was a customer of this ISP I'd now be thinking "legal action".
No but, yeah but, no but...
..lose their common carrier designation, since they obviously aren't trying to be one, and immediately become responsible for evey bit of kiddie porn and other illegal activity that goes on on their network.
Wait, I thought this was a website hosted by the company itself. Certainly they can decide what they do or don't want to host. They can absolutely tell the union to move to union.com [example] or Tripod or whatever.
Now, if they were blocking the independently-hosted union.com, they'd be where they had no business to be, and that would obviously be wrong. That's what this story implies is going on. But from TFAs I've been looking at, it's that they're deciding what can be hosted on their own servers. Absolutely their right.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Otherwise, I imagine this is dirty, a bad idea, but legal.
Actually they can't because at the point where they take responsibility for the content they're no longer a common carrier.
It's like if I fly American Airlines to Chicago then go murder 800 people. Did AA "aid a criminal"? No they're a common carrier who flies anyone who is eligible.
Similarly if Telus takes up the job of filtering and re-routing specific traffic then they're responsible for [say] viruses or other malware I may stumble upon. They're no longer a common carrier if they deny access to legitimate eligible traffic.
I'm not taking any sides in the strike/business issue. Personally I think quite a few "big corps" are getting away with too much b.s. these days. That said I also think having no job is worse than having a job that doesn't pay fairly.
Though I guess at some point you have to take a stand and demand your share of the proverbial pie.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
In any case it's a stupid move to lie to your customers.
From the union site: "Customers who use telus.net as their Internet Service Provider are unable to access this website due to censorship by TELUS. When support is called they claim not to be blocking access. Television station BCTV Global did a story on the 6:00 o'clock news on this issue. Radio station CKNW also had as story on censoring TELUS customers, after receiving calls from numerous TWU members. Both media outlets are in British Columbia. In both cases, the company admitted to censoring TWU members and their customers." emphasis mine
From the site of telus: "Throughout this time, we will work hard to minimize the service impacts of the TWU's activities. We apologize for any inconvenience you may experience and thank you for your patience." emphasis mine
If Canada is not that much different than the US. The telco here is going to get itself in serious trouble. If they are going to selectively censor web sites, they are taking on a lot more responsibility than they are probably wanting. Suddenly (at least in the US) they could be held liable for whatever transmitted across their lines(kiddie porn, warez, pirated mp3's etc).
//is the parent modded insightful, for the mere hint of libertarianism?
Lastly it is highly likely they are breaking contracts with the people who lease their lines to provide their own interenet service.
Honestly free speech should carry over to communcation channels regardless of who owns them.
How would you like it if the phone company monitored your conversations and censored what they thought was inappropriate (it'd be illegal). But are you honestly advocating that you should just switch phone companies?
OK --- TELUS has blackholed VFC and I don't agree with it but let us be accurate.
The union web site www.twu-canada.ca is NOT blocked.
The totally unsanctioned site www.voices-for-change.com is blackholed. You can get to it quite easily using a proxy such as guardster. On VFC there are numerous comments promoting physical violence and doing the "nod-nod wink-wink" with respect to vandalism. They are also acting as a kangaroo-court for union members who do not follow the line prescribed by union militants. This is not a black and white issue of intolerance and censorship.
TELUS still should not block it but I would not condemn them for their actions. The union has done nothing to curb extreme comments and has to some degree encouraged them. When it comes to information Caveat Emptor.
It's a dangerous move by the telco. Up until now, telecoms companies have tried to argue ( quite rightly IMHO ) that they merely provide the infrastructure, and are not directly responsible for the content of websites that they host.
Here, we have a telecoms company deciding unilateraly to filter a website because they feel like it. If they can filter one, they may find themselves liable to filter all of the others. Imagine the court case
Lawyer: You must block goatse.ca because it is offensive to all mankind
Telco: We can't be expected proactively police and block websites: too much information, freedom of speech, etc, etc,
Lawyer: But what about that time you blocked your union website? You can block "offensive" material when you want to.
Telco: Um...
The simple answer is "no".
My opinion is "no".
The truth is, even though they're an ISP, they're still a private company (as opposed to say a government entity), and can do anything they want. It's understandable that while involved in a conflict, they'd want to suppress the opposing side. Is it right? Not in the least.
I don't know Canadian law, and IANAL, but in America I know your Constitutional right to freedom of speech applies to the government supressing your speech. Plenty of people will reference the "yelling fire in a crowded theater" scenerio, but I'll go with this one instead. If you were to go into a Christian church, and draw a circle of protection on the floor (in a non-permanent way, of course), and start a [insert pagan tradition of your chioce here] ceremony, you'd be told to stop, probably not in the nicest terms.
Is it right for the telco to block the union's site from customers using that telco? No. Can they? Sure. Just like they can arbitrarly block "bad" web sites, spammers email or networks, or even potentially exploitable ports on user machines. They can do anything they'd like with their own equipment, they're under no obligation to provide service to "everything". Of course, when the word gets out that they've blocked something like this, which isn't in the best interest of their customers, it looks very bad for them.
As I work for an Internet Provider (hosting provider), I consider it unacceptable to block any particular network, and I won't do it. As a journalist and an advocate of free speech, I consider it very wrong. People do wrong things every day, it's up to the customers to make the decision of if they want to patronize a company who behaves this way.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
The bottom line here is, if a consumer does not like the actions that a corporation is taking, then they can vote with their money by using a competing service.
Bullshit. Did the contract these people agreed to in order to get service mention "oh by the way, we censor websites that we don't like?
Your "vote with your wallet" crap requires an informed marketplace, which is anathema to today's megacorporations which thrive on lies and greed. This is one of the reasons I pay extra to not get a yearly contract for my ISP: I can't trust them to not pull shit on me with their vaguely worded "bandwidth limits" which they can't just tell me what they are, and other trash like that.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No. It's not reasonable for them to restrict access to web pages during contract negotiations. But (as has been previously mentioned) this is not censorship. The issue here may very well be breach of contract. If I were a customer of this ISP and I was arbitrarily blocked from any website by ISP policy, I would be looking at my Terms of Service to determine when and where it said they could do that. If it wasn't there, I'd be demanding my money back for every day that they were in breach of the agreement which I paid for. And then there's always small claims court.
But, this is not censorship. This is a service that you pay for and you expect to be delivered to you. Additionally, the union has absolutely no expectation of delivery to customers of that telco. If they did, then services like safeaccess couldn't exist. Every pornographer in the world could run around and demand that parents allow thier children to view porn.
Is this unreasonable? Yes. And it will likely cost them (lost customers, time fighting with annoyed customers, small claims court).
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Of course, Telus just opened up a big can of worms: The Canadian Constitution (1982) guarantees freedom of expression (including on the internet) as a fundamental right:
Seems pretty open and shut - Telus is going to get its ass wupped.- Your book store isn't a regional monopoly. Telus is.
- Your book store isn't a common carrier - Telus is (but may have just jeopardized that status)
- Telus isn't hosting the site - its blocking its paying customers from seeing a site critical of it - this would be like the book store physically preventing its customers from shopping elsewhere for books "because it can"
Telus - their motto is "The future is friendly" - my guess it should be changed to "Telus - The future is Telus-friendly, citizen!" Tbetween being on strike and being locked-out. A lock-out is the situation where the workers are ready to negotiate a deal, but management refuses to talk to them at all, and refuses to allow them work in the meantime under the old contract.
A strike is where management is ready to negotiate a deal, but the workers refuse to talk, and refuse to work in the meantime under the old contract.
It is wrong to suggest that the choice of phrase is made to influence public opinion about the situation. A "lock-out" and a "strike" represent two very different situations.
What?
Comcast owns the nice fancy fiberoptic cables and repeaters that is tacked up on the electric company owned poles, that are planted in the publicly owned property paid for by my tax dollars; all of this is controlled by laws, regulations, and contracts between the companies. Not every company can get access to the pole's and public right-of-ways, so yes it is an effective monopoly. Not everybody can get competing services, I live in a city that has DSL service in it, but can't get DSL because of the distance to the central office, and probably never will.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
then find another gawd damn job!
I think I hate trolls almost as much as you hate unions, but I'll still feed you.
The problem is the the other "gawd damn job" is probably no better than the original one. Do you honestly expect someone who is qualified to work at Wal-Mart to have the skills necessary to be able to obtain good enough employment to secure a living wage and proper healthcare benefits without the help of a union to use the strength of numbers to force management to provide such things? Of course not. It just won't happen.
Sure, you'll read about how "gracious" some employers are and give all these great things to their employees, but it remains that Wal-Mart's execs have some of the deepest pockets in the country. They go on and on about how much they give to the communities they destroy, and yet, they can't afford to give their own employees enough money to stay off of government healthcare. The simple fact is that most employers do not care about employees. They care about the bottom line.
It's not as easy as "going somewhere else." Without unions, your taxes would have to be double to pay for all the poor and sick people we'd have in this country.
The problem with unions today isn't that they've ran out of their usefulness. The problem is that they're still suffering from corruption of the past and mismanagement.
The arguments you make in your post are the same arguments that have been made for hundreds of years, and they were proven wrong then as well.
Also, I recall quite clearly a report that out of grocers in my area (Southwest Ohio), those with unions actually had lower average prices on the same products compared to those without unions. So much for that theory.
What?
The concept of common carrier goes back at least to the early days of railroads. The idea is that a common carrier must take the traffic of anyone who has the money to pay the fare. A common carrier cannot discriminate between customers.
An early example of a common carrier case would be where a railroad refused to carry wheat for farmers. It would only carry wheat for grain companies. The court declared that the railway, being a common carrier, must carry wheat for the farmers. Before that, the grain companies could dictate the price of grain to the farmers. The concept of 'common carrier' can be very powerful.
'Common carrier' has been extended to the telephone companies. That means that the telco cannot refuse you phone service if it is available in your area.
The designation was not sought by the common carriers. It was thrust on them by legislation and common law. The fact that ISPs find it useful is an just lucky for them. In any event, they may not have the choice of whether they are or are not common carriers.
Your analogy doesn't work. What Telus is doing is like a book store owner selling you a book, and then refusing to give it to you because they don't like it.
I think Telus is clearly in the wrong here. If they think the site is that bad, they should get a take-down order from the courts. Then I would have no problem with them blocking the site, and perhaps forcing the hosting ISP to take down the site.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
In all fairness, while being a little higher cost than I'd like Comcast has been fairly decent to me, even though they are the only reasonable broadband service available to me. Of course, a big part of keeping the irresponsible elements in Comcast in check are the anti-trust laws. (there are no evil companies, just bad people who have too much influence in those companies.)
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I don't know about canada but in the US ISP's are NOT common carriers.
I have said this far to often and I am not sure where everyone gets this idea from but they are wrong.
ISP's are considered customers in the telecom industry and are classified ESP's (that's enhanced service providers).
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Hmm... This is looking like the UK's infamous Godfrey vs. Demon case all over again, but now with the ISP giving up the should-have-been-common-sense defence Demon tried.
For those who don't know, this was a landmark UK legal ruling from the mid-90s. Godfrey was defamed in newsgroup postings, and sued Demon, a major UK ISP, for hosting those postings. Demon's defence was basically that the postings were made by an unknown individual who wasn't a Demon customer, and they were simply providing access to content accessible to anyone on the Internet, and so shouldn't be held responsible. Essentially, though I don't know whether UK law uses the same term, they were arguing that it was unreasonable for a common carrier to be held responsible for the information they carry.
Demon famously lost, but they lost on the basis that having been told about the defamatory content they should have removed it from their systems, not on the basis that they shouldn't have been hosting it in the first place. This opened up a huge legal can of worms, because it put all ISPs within the jurisdiction in a position of having to remove any offensive content in the face of any complaint or risk being sued, yet then acting as courts and censoring material without giving the source so much as a right to reply. AFAIK, the resulting legal minefield remains unsafe to this day, and ISPs get shaky at the very mention of the case. On the flip side, the case also seems to confirm that ISPs are not to be treated as publishers, with publishers' liabilities for content, just for providing access to material: the "common carrier" principle appears to be respected here.
In today's Canadian version, however, it seems the ISP has already given up any pretense of being a mere provider of access to globally available information. If an active decision was made to kill access to a particular web site, it's hard to see how they didn't just make themselves liable by default for every site they allow access to that contains defamation, kiddie porn, or any other $OFFENSIVE_CONTENT.
How this move was approved by their lawyers, I can't imagine...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
... and of course, any Telus union member who uses Telus as their ISP can ask for an investigation because Telus is interfering with communications between the union and its' members. Gotta wonder who was the mensa member who ordered the bits twiddled to block the site in the first place ...
' Why, then, are so many opposed to the centralization of labor in a similar "corporation" called a union? '
So many of us are opposed to it since it is forced on the workers against their will. At least in the US it is: most union members are part of "closed shops" where it is "join this organization or you will be fired". Much of my opposition to unions as such would vanish if they became legitimate organizations, and only took money from individuals who wanted to contribute it. I detest organizations that operate largely on stolen/extorted money.
This is very different from the capitalists forming a corporation: an operation that requires complete consent of those pooling the resources and signing the documents.
'Clearly, most advocates of free enterprise...'
That is the important thing. Free enterprise. It certainly is not very free if, as a condition of working, you are forced to join an organization that has absolutely nothing to do with your ability or qualifications to do the job.
- Microsoft should disallow access to the Firefox/insert other browsers sites from IE in a default Windows Install
- ISP can block your email because you tell a friend not to use them
- ISP can stop you from reading
/. because they contain a report about them blocking a site
Sure, you can switch to a different ISP if you aren't on a contract or the like. But what if you just think the site is down, and go "Oh well, the union must have pulled it?" Seems like deception to me...Claims of censorship aside, this is really very little different than a DDOS attack. It is an organized and intentional effort to prevent content from being distributed to interested parties by the union web site. They are an infrastructure provider that is actively disrupting the flow of information across their network for the sole and single purpose of denying voice to opponents in a political and legal dispute. Even if that is, somehow, legal in Canada - it is ethically reprehensible, and utterly inappropriate.
Regardless of whether or not they forfeit their 'common carrier' designation by doing so, their 'rights' as a company are, in this case, clearly superceded by their responsibilities as a carrier. The Union is no more an asset or product of Telus than is Slashdot, and as such, Telus' right to limit presence/distribution are EXTREMELY limited. More they are a party actively involved in litigation/arbitration, and Telus did not engage in such filtering before the dispute. That places the action squarely in the punitive arena - which is a very dangerous place for any carrier - common or otherwise - to be.
The bottom line here is, if a consumer does not like the actions that a corporation is taking, then they can vote with their money by using a competing service.
Great idea, in fact I think I'll string up some cable lines and start a competing service so others can... wait what do you mean I can't? The government has granted them a monopoly on the use of those poles, underground conduits, and publicly owned right of ways to prevent there from being too many lines up? Well now. That's different isn't it? Since they are a government sponsored monopoly I guess the free market can't effectively decide now can it?
Please in future actually to make sure that when you are rabidly espousing unfettered free market economics that situation you are talking about is a free market, not a government sponsored monopoly. They don't have to compete thanks to the government, thus they have to work in the public interest as much as needed. Censoring their competitors or unions is obviously not in the public interest.
Ah, the ghost of Ayn Rand raises her screechy little methadrine-fueled head. It has nothing to do with property rights or common carrier babe, and everything to do with abuse of position during a bargaining agreement. If this were happening any other time, they might have a leg, maybe just a little toe to stand on, but this telco has blown off both legs in its zeal to shoot itself in the foot.
Last I heard, people paid for use of their property, and weren't party to an agreement of "we'll fuck around with the content you access to our heart's content if it might have an impact on our stock prices". You might even say the expectation was somewhat the opposite.
But right, all that "capitalism is about the enlightened freedom of choice" nonsense only applies to the people who actually own the most property, no?
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Fine, telcos aren't public utilities. When can the public expect all the back rent to be paid for allowing the telcos to lay lines all over the public's property?
"You get what you pay for after all." --
The designation was not sought by the common carriers. It was thrust on them by legislation and common law. The fact that ISPs find it useful is an just lucky for them. In any event, they may not have the choice of whether they are or are not common carriers.
However, the requirement to carry all comers also confers a privilege - a lack of responsibility for refusing to carry some loads. (The responsibility is borne by the government because it forced them to accept the traffic.) An ISP may find that carrying the union's propaganda is less of a burden than being responsible for kiddie porn.
The union should file a suit against the ISP - not for refusing to carry its traffic, but for recovery for all the SPAM it and its members recieved through their connections, using the fact that the ISP refused to carry the union website traffic as proof that they are NOT a common carrier, and thus bear responsibility for content.
IMHO that will turn the ISP around in very short order.
If they don't turn it back on within a few hours of receiving notice of the suit, file another for damage to their kids' mental health due to viewing kiddie porn carried over the ISP's lines. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Own"ing assets does not give you absolute power over what you do with them.
- Just because an airline owns the plane, it doesn't mean they can throw passengers out the windows. (that's illegal)
- Just because a landlord owns an apartment, it doesn't mean he can control his residents setting up wireless networks. (that's the FCC's job)
- Just because a telephone company owns some wires doesn't mean they can re-route calls to their prefered customers (as Sprint was accused of doing in Las Vegas when people called prostitutes)
Ownership is one thing - but when you have a customer you have to abide by the contract with your customer. For an ISP ("internet service provider") that means "providing" "internet" "service" -- something that they're breaching if they block the union site..Oh really? So...if you don't like the union, then vote with your feet! Take another job. It's absolutely free enterprise: the "closed shop" only exists because the employer signed an agreement that they would fire anyone who doesn't pay the organization that negotiated their contract.
Union security clauses in contracts just prevent free riders: in states where these clauses are illegal (talk about elimination of freedom of contract!) what usually happens is that a bunch of employees decide they want the benefits of the union (much higher wages) without paying the people who work at the union to provide these benefits.
Don't want to pay for union representation? That's fine! Go work for a company that is non-union. Don't want to do that because the wages suck? Hmm.
-Daniel
P.S. All unions in the USA are democratic, by law. So if the majority of people under the contract want to get rid of it, it's gone.
Also, in the USA, there is actually no such thing as a closed shop. Google "Union Agency Fee" for more information.
Ownyourphone.com. Custom ringtones, cheap and easy
Parent post is currently modded +4, interesting, for values of interesting that include "wrong" and "completely missed the point."