On Jul 25, 2005, at 9:14 AM, Mike Tancsa wrote:
Canadian telephone company and ISP "Telus" has admitted that they
are <http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2005/07/24/1145417-
sun.html>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 <http://www.voices-for-change.com/>union's
webpage. Is it reasonable for an ISP to censor webpages they don't
agree with during contract negotiations?"
As Telus is one of my transit providers, they are still advertising
the path to me, but are blackholing the /32s in question. Kind of
sets a bad precedent for a common carrier argument :( I like BGP
blackholing to protect internet infrastructure, but what exactly is
this protecting ?
ISPs are not common carriers. Look at your contract, I think you
will find they are allowed to filter specific things if they feel
necessary for a wide variety of reasons. (I have not read the Telus
contract, but such language is pretty standard.)
Put another way: If the /32 in question was a spam source, would you
feel the same?
All that said, there may very well be Canadian law about union
busting or some such which could apply. But Telus is a phone
company, and one thing phone companies have is lawyers. :)
Besides, since they are not a common carrier, you are probably able
to move to a new transit provider - i.e. vote with your [wallet|feet|
whatever]. This might be true even if you are in a long term
contract, since they are filtering access to a site you want to
view. Check with your lawyer.
--
TTFN,
patrick
