[82626] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Transit politics (Telus blocking sites it does not like)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Patrick W. Gilmore)
Mon Jul 25 10:06:14 2005
In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050725081205.04201958@64.7.153.2>
Cc: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>
From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 2005 10:05:39 -0400
To: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
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
