ISPs Known for Defending Their Customer's Rights?

lieumorrison asks: "With the recent examples of some US based Internet service providers going overboard in their desire to stay on the good side of the law, I ask Slashdot readers: What ISPs have a reputation of protecting their costumers by not arbitrarily giving in to C&D orders and such, without first contacting their lawyers? (ISPs hosting in the US or abroad; based on reactions in the past)"

Comments

Re:Speakeasy.net

[DarkHelmet]

Not to mention they let you run servers off your connection, won't block outgoing ports like 25 or incoming ports like 80.

If google were to be an ISP, they should buy Speakeasy, since it would go well with their "Do no evil" mantra.

Videotron in Canada

[darthgnu]

Videotron in Canada is one of the biggest cable companies around where I live. They have shared interests with Quebecor/big media, they are known for disclosing customer data to third parties, if you care about your privacy, do not pick this ISP.

Costumers?

[toddbu]

What ISPs have a reputation of protecting their costumers by not arbitrarily giving in to C&D orders and such...?

Wouldn't an ISP protect its customers. Or maybe they really like their costumes.

Does anyone even know what their ISP policies are?

[bergeron76]

I assume this is the reason the response rate on this is so low. It's an intriguing question, though.

Re:Does anyone even know what their ISP policies a

[hords]

I'm a sysadmin at an ISP in Oregon, UNICOM. We get requests all the time for customer information. Our policy is to only give out information if we receive a subpoena. If someone doesn't give this to us we tell them that we require it (I've personally told a police officer this who was trying to get info.) We get many emails and letters from RIAA and MPAA, but to my knowledge never anything that we provided customer information for. They send things to try to scare ISPs into providing info, but that tends to be it in my experience.

Re:Hurricane Electric

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

I think this gives an indication that they are clueful, but I don't know much more about their policies.

I don't know that it means that they are "clueful", maybe they just don't care. I get a huge amount of spam, port scans, and out-right hack attempts from their IP blocks, and they don't seem to really care.

xs4all

[splortnik2003]

i think http://www.xs4all.nl/uk/index.php is pretty much exactly what you're looking for.

unfortunately in holland, so not sure how useful this is to you.

but they're basically an out of control, customer privacy respecting and defending, scientology-document-hosting, barrel of isp goodness. (more.) i wish i lived in holland so i could give them my connectivity money.

Re:xs4all

[fatquack]

As a happy customer of them for ten years I can say that the parent is completely right.
They even sued the state about the costs for the tapping of customers and are working with the EDRI against the EU data retention plans.
There is also the long running Scientology courtcase against them.
Like someone there said: "We would not even give the time of the day to a law enforcement agency without a court order."

Re:xs4all

[owlstead]

And they sued a dutch spammer into oblivion, tried to get cable providers to open up to other ISP's, held a conference on their 10th year on copyright issues, put some money into bits of freedom, have a large anonymous ftp server with goodies for all, provide IPv6 services... Lets just say they are on the good side. They do put letters from the Dutch RIAA through to their customers though. Anonymously, of course :)

This is not that strange, since they have sprung from a now defunct hacker magazine called hacktic. more information here

Privacy Policies

[slughead]

A lot of ISPs' privacy policies state that they wont give out your personal information with anything short of a warrant.

With the FBI basically writing their own warrants now, it's put them in an awkward legal position.

The best part is: even before the patriot II (which passed, see above link), ISPs could be charged with obstruction of justice for not giving the FBI what they ask for in unofficial terms.

Speaking as someone who was tracked down in such a way over a MISDEMENOR (dismissed, thank God), I can say that this affects us all. I'm very proud to say that a grand jury was assembled and a warrant had to be issued before Cox gave the information up. This was after Patriot I, however, it was BEFORE Patriot II.

Nowadays.. well ...

XS4All, Netherlands

[mpieters]

The Dutch ISP XS4All has a very long history of both active and pro-active defense of their customer rights. It is currently leading an international petition against the EU plans for data retention, for example. It also started case against the Dutch government over wiretapping.

In the past it has on a regular bases stood up to defend their customer rights, including a long running spat against the Church of Scientology and a case of freedom of expression even if it is about derailing German trains.

Last but not least XS4All actively sues spammers (sorry, Dutch only).

Re:The answer is simple.

[imstanny]

"You are basically saying rifle companies don't have to be responsible for your firearm actions."

That's exactly what I'm saying.

About Common Carrier status

[arete]

I am not a lawyer, but here's the very rough deal:
Someone who is transmitting information as a "common carrier" isn't responsible for that content under very broad rules.

Someone who ISN'T a common carrier still isn't automatically responsible. There's lots of ways to NOT be liable, but this is one especially broad and reliable kind of protection and companies don't want to give it up.

1. A _hosting_ company can make whatever AUP they want, and they can enforce it; they aren't acting as a common carrier anyway. A hosting company can always be liable for what they're hosting (to some extent, after they know)

2. An _access_ company is protected by common carrier rules. So if your DSL provider prevents you from seeing certain sites then they become somewhat liable for all the content passed over their lines.

It doesn't count if the filtering is optional (most family-friendly) or if it is technical (most kinds of AV protection; anything supposedly to keep bandwidth down.)

So there's a narrow techincal distinction in there somewhere, but the rough idea is that people who are _bandwidth_ providers don't want to stop you from accessing something based on content, because it reduces their protection.

Shaw Cable

[space_biker]

Shaw Cable, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, is well known for supporting customer privacy:

http://www.shaw.ca/NR/rdonlyres/E4279F65-EE08-4E51 -A3CB-1C29D914023B/0/ProtectionofInternetPrivacy.p df&ei=z5wEQ663Fb6sYeGhgOQI(pdf)

Speakeasy.

[Telastyn]

They likely won't fight a warrant, and I would be doubtful they'd fight a plausible cease and desist; but I know they won't crack down themselves on hosts running servers, pegging bandwidth for p2p stuff, or otherwise using the service provided. And they're not going to resell my contact info.

Unfortunately, that's leaps and bounds above any other American ISP I've encountered.