Why should anyone find this that odd? After all, the powers that be at Verizon were among the first to capitulate to the idiotic “search for child porn” that had virtually no chance of finding any.
The people at Verizon removed the bulk of Usenet access to comply with a lame search and request made by the attorney general from New York, and in the process showed they have no compunction about keeping their government happy, themselves out of trouble, and giving up any subscriber that might be a suspect. In the end, there is nothing worthwhile on the Verizon Usenet servers, and Verizon saved a big investigation, and many dollars. The dollars were saved because the company was (ostensibly) able to shift the blame for the loss of the bulk of Usenet to the NY AGs office, but allowing the loss of the Usenet content gave them a perfect excuse to lower services, while keeping pricing the same. Net effect – increased profits.
Now, it seems as though Verizon is perfectly willing to cut off suspected violators of copyright law. Why does this sound familiar?
I would say it might go something like this: Most everyone who signs up with Verizon these days wants FiOS. Signing up for FiOS is always cheaper when on a long term plan. Verizon happily scans the data flow on these accounts (most likely the higher your flow of data the greater your chances of being “sniffed”) and when it finds something it “suspects” the user gets a letter. After a couple of letters (to approximate the appearance of fair chance) the customer is cut off, yet because the company has the customer under contract, the customer must pay off the contract, with no service.
Now, I know many would think that this is ravings of a mad man. But tell me, why would a company on the up and up have a policy that allows termination of service for complaining about that company online. In other words, don’t diss us, or your connection is toast. (This is Verizon policy, plain and simple.)
The story in Maximum PC shows that Verizon might have a spokesperson that should have kept her mouth shut, for she speaks of company policies for suspicion of illegal activity. Not that the company would want real proof.
Maybe Verizon spokesperson Bobbi Henson thought she was being reassuring, but her recent statement to CNET actually reads like more of a veiled threat. When asked about Verizon’s ongoing handling of illegal file sharing Henson said, “We’ve cut some people off. We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don’t throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing. Verizon does not have bandwidth caps.” Well, as long as they’re not throttling, right?
Verizon seems to have confirmed that multiple warnings for illegal file sharing could result in suspension of service. This policy is very similar to the one heavily favored by the recording industry. The RIAA originally announced their intention to work with ISPs in late 2008. The partnerships seemed not to have materialized, but this may be proof that Verizon has quietly fallen in line with the RIAA.
According to Verizon, the system works much as you’d expect. Content owners troll the p2p networks capturing IP addresses. They forward those along, and Verizon sends out infringement letters. No information was given to indicate how many infringement notices a customer will receive before being cut off. They did not give any information about what a customer can do if they feel they received a notice in error. Verizon claimed repeat offenses were rare, but are they just creating craftier, harder to catch file sharers?
Perhaps the devil you know (Comcast) is the lesser of two evils in this story. One thing is is for sure, if we are to have freedom of information, and network neutrality, the likes of the ISPs cannot be left to be the arbiters of our online lives.
§
•
Remember, according to the RIAA, we are all pirates…
⌘
▶