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Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?
unixluv writes to tell us that another ISP is testing web content filtering and content substitution software. One example sees a system message that is pre-pended to an existing web page. While it seems innocent enough, is this the wave of the future? Will your ISP censor or alter your web experience at will? There have been many instances of content filtering lately and it seems to be a popular idea on the other side of the fence.
There should be no ambiguity here. They have no right to modify that information. What they are doing is tantamount to forgery, perjury and impersonation. Sue the hell out of them until they stop or go bankrupt.
Get ready for the encrypted web.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Sites that don't want to risk having their ads stripped or replaced will shift to SSL.
When enough big-name sites do that the economic incentive to insert or replace ads will drop off.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Adding the header is making a derivative work of the original web page. So is substituting one add for another. I can't think of any reasonable fair use argument that would prevent this from being a copyright violation. The web sites visited by the ISP's subscribers likely have a cause of action against the ISP. And the ad substitution victims likely could prove significant damages.
I haven't fully thought through the contractual implications of this yet (as between the ISP and the ISP's subscribers), but there's almost certainly something there, too.
Is the moment websites start going to all HTTPS.
I kind of doubt anyone likes their website to have content in it inserted by an ISP. The big sites like Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, etc, will just turn on HTTPS for all content. The only reason they haven't done it yet is because there's little reason to do so, and it takes some extra processing time.
AccountKiller
Its always puzzled me why ISP's won't text you about network outages, filtering and bandwidth limitations.
For the same reason Water companies don't contact you and tell you about all the leaky water pipes in your area, they don't want to be sending negative news to everyone, it makes them look bad.
If they can blame you for breaking their terms and conditions, that makes you the bad guy, but if they sent a text telling you all the latest things they'd decided to not let you do, regardless of whether you were doing them, that makes them the bad guy, and customers would start leaving.
Couldn't a website claim copyright infringement because the ISP has basically taken their work and made a derived version of it with new content on it?
Do you really believe the free market is at work in the telecom industry? In most places in the US people have zero, one, or two options for broadband network access and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. As a result, we don't have the many competitors required for the free market, we have a cartel, with most major players having been convicted of undermining the free market at one point or another. New players cannot enter because legal restrictions on the use of the last mile, public right of ways, licensed to only one cable and one phone operator. New players are also disadvantaged because while the government ate the costs of the initial telecoms, subsidizing them to the tune of billions, they won't do the same for anyone else, thus making it a very unfair playing field. Finally, peering agreements are great and all, but the free market cannot act though dozens of intermediaries and if filtering is being done by a network operator that has a peering agreement with someone who has a peering agreement with someone who has a peering agreement with someone you're doing business with, your dislike of the practice will never filter back to them through free market feedback and so nothing will get better.
Before you can expect the invisible hand of the market to act, you have to make sure that market meets the minimum criteria to qualify as a capitalist, free market, and the telecom industry is not even close.
Actually if anything it'll have the opposite effect on content monitoring and filtering. The SAFE act doesn't require ISPs to monitor everything on their network and get fined if they don't report somebody. Instead it says *IF* they detect somebody looking at illegal images or something else covered in the act, and they fail to report it, then they can be fined. This means that the more monitoring an ISP does of the traffic, the more likely it is that they'll technically see something that should have been reported, and fail to do so, opening themselves up for legal problems. On the other hand, if they don't monitor and filter traffic then they won't be at risk, since they'll almost never "catch" anybody that needs to be reported under the SAFE act. Granted, the SAFE act is still a horrible idea, but it's not something that will cause ISPs to do more monitoring.
Sooner or later the ISPS will start advertising "We dont restrict your usage, unlike ". The market competition will provide us net neutrality not government intervention
That would be great. Then everyone would have an incentive to use encryption by default.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Will we see a trend towards major websites being served entirely over https?
Whenever you see this happening, do a screen capture and a "save page" to preserve the evidence, and then notify the webmaster of the page whose copyright was infringed, suggesting that this someone is committing this felony infringement of their rights, and that they need to do something about it before the statute of limitations on such action expires.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
It matters what you call it because people need to have at least an inkling of what they're talking about. It's happened in other threads, and it will likely happen in this one, that the issue is confused for net neutrality, a completely separate side-issue.
Also, content-filtering and context-filtering are two completely different issues. With the former, I can't see any way you can claim common-carrier status. With the latter, I'm not sure yet. For instance, if I'm a common carrier, I'm pretty sure I'm still allowed to pick what *kind* of things I carry. I am under no requirement, for instance, to support carrier-pigeons on my network. Likewise, I may be under no compulsion to support bittorrent transfers on my network. On the other hand, I *am* supporting TCP/IP traffic, so it seems I should support *all* TCP/IP traffic, provided it conforms to the spec I am claiming to support.
So, by that logic, anyone claiming common-carrier status (i.e. Comcast) should not be allowed to perform content- or context-filtering. The problem is getting them to define what context(s) they carry. I have no doubt that if it came down to that, Comcast would *not* claim to be a common carrier of the TCP/IP context. They would instead claim far more specific contexts, such as SMPT, HTTP, etc.
All of that aside, I think it's bullshit and Comcast should have their feet put to the coals for the fraudulent data they're transferring. They are actively performing a man-in-the-middle attack on those whose traffic they are supposedly neutrally transferring.
Long story short--and I apologize for all the rambling above--it matters what you call it because that changes what bullshit excuse will be used in court.
-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
It's a business people and bandwidth costs money. You have to assume that the evolution of the internet would follow the same basic pattern as other communication networks.
Where in the world did this belief that you are free to do whatever you want on the internet ever come from ?
If I ran an ISP I would use filtering to prevent bandwidth hogs. I mean, do you guys remember what a BBS was ? When nodes cost serious money you had lots of limitations. As the available bandwidth shrinks filtering becomes more and more cost effective.
Since America does not believe in socialism, this is the future of the internet, corporate America pushes for stiffer patent law, refuses to absorb the costs of communication upgrades and shapes bandwidth by default.
Think about it, if you wanted to run a secure ISP for profit, you'd want bandwidth shaping also.
It's a given ISP's will merege and filter as costs and user increase. We have no national communication structure, just a headless monster that will bite it's own head off as soon as cooperate for the greater good.
Am I wrong ?
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.