Private company as censor... privatised governance and seems clearly
illegal ....
Guru
Microsoft Censors Pirate Bay Links in Windows Live Messenger
March 24, 2012
The Pirate Bay is not only the most visited BitTorrent site on the
Internet, but arguably the most censored too. Many ISPs have been
ordered to block their customers’ access to the website, and recently
Microsoft joined in on the action by stopping people sharing its
location with others. Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger (MSN) now
refuses to pass on links to The Pirate Bay website, claiming they are
unsafe.
Imagine that you found this great new band sharing their music
<http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6863761/PrettyLights-BT> on BitTorrent
for free. You’re actually so excited about this find you want to share
the experience with friends, so you paste them a link to the official
torrent file via Windows Live Messenger. Although this might sound like
a good idea to some, Microsoft appears to disagree. Those who try to
paste a Pirate Bay link to their friends through Windows Live Messenger
will notice that it never reaches its destination.
Instead, Microsoft alerts the sender that The Pirate Bay is unsafe.
Apparently, the company is actively monitoring people’s communications
to prevent them from linking to sites they deem to be a threat.
The same happens in other chat clients such as Pidgin when using a
Windows Live Messenger account. Whatever Microsoft’s reason for
monitoring private conversations and then swallowing Pirate Bay links,
the Redmond-based company’s censorship policies are not very consistent.
All of the other large BitTorrent sites remain unaffected, even though
they offer content that’s identical to The Pirate Bay.
*While it’s not clear whether the above is related to copyright
concerns, censorship is indisputably an up-and-coming tool to protect
the interests of the entertainment industries. Taking away your freedom
of speech one link at a time.
*
TorrentFreak attempted to contact Microsoft for a comment on the issue,
but we have yet to hear back.
source
<http://torrentfreak.com/microsoft-censors-pirate-bay-links-in-windows-live-messenger-120324/>
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