Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone

[tbyg52]

As this blogger says, "from the surgical-precision dept.".....
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/15/1258238

Verizon Communications confirmed on Thursday that it will stop offering its customers access to tens of thousands of Usenet discussion areas, including the alt.* groups that have been a free-flowing area for discussions for over two decades.

Eric Rabe, a Verizon spokesman, said only a subset of discussion groups, or newsgroups, would be offered to customers in the future. In Usenet parlance, those newsgroups are called the big 8; they include complex procedures for newsgroup creation and deletion and even boast a formal management committee.

Rabe had told us earlier in the week that some newsgroups would be restricted, but didn't have the details until we spoke with him on Thursday.

No law requires Verizon to do this. Instead, the company (and, to varying extents, Time Warner Cable and Sprint) agreed to restrictions on Usenet in response to political strong-arming by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups--out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist.

More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html

Big Brother is not even bothering to watch you anymore - he'll just take away anything he can't control....

[high density]

1. So if Verizon wants to be a censor...

What happens if some kiddie porn makes it through that censorship? Is Verizon responsible?

That said, probably 95% of Verizon's customers have no clue what a newsgroup is. The one newsgroup I used to read regularly was destroyed singlehandedly by a troll. I'm sure the rest of usenet isn't in much better shape. There are third party providers that anybody can use if Verizon doesn't want to keep certain groups on their servers.

[tbyg52]

3. Oh, I know it's not a high usage item

and that there are ways around it, but sheesh.......!

[woodsprite]

2. Damn! We just switched from Comcast to Verizon because the

tv/cable was more reliable in our area. I've been having problems with Verizon internet connections since we got it 2 wks ago (cannot for the life of me connect using my Palm pilot anymore - dns won't resolve), now this. Hubby uses several alt. newsgroups for his Halloween props construction ideas. Maybe he'll switch back to Comcast for internet. Of course, it'll be more expensive to split up the services. With Comcast, our cable was doing funky things (video pixelization, stuttering or non-existent audio, or just the 'blue screen of death), but I never had any problem connecting using the wireless from any of our machines, including my Palm.