Computers/Internet

Internet Providers Censoring Conservative News E-Mail

Cassandra — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:23:44 GMT

Have you experienced any of this? I have, but was able to get it corrected. What experiences have you had. NOTE: Brackets and underlines are mine for emphasis...

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INTERNET PROVIDERS CENSORING CONSERVATIVE NEWS E-MAIL

Posted 1:00 AM Eastern

by Jim Kouri
April 26, 2007
© 2007 NewsWithViews.com http://www.newswithviews.com/

Something ominous and sinister has been happening on the Internet lately: two major internet service providers -- without any prior explanation or notice -- have been discriminating against conservative e-zines and web journals. [read on].

According to several subscribers to NewsWithViews.Com's newsletter, companies such as Earthlink and SBC Global are intentionally blocking delivery of NWV's e-mail to subscribers.

"When I wasn't receiving my NewsWithViews notices I called their office in Oregon to ask why. I was concerned they had closed down or worse. The gentleman I spoke with told me that all the Earthlink folks were being denied delivery of the daily posts from NWV," complains Jackie Juntti, a NewswithViews.com e-mail subscriber.

"I have to admit that shocked me as Earthlink has long had the reputation of sending EVERYTHING thru their servers -- no holds barred. I tried and tried to make an e-mail complaint about their blocking NWV from getting to me. I explained to them I SUBSCRIBED to that list and I WANT IT DELIVERED!! I tried several different Earthlink e-mail addresses and as of this moment I have yet to receive any response from Earthlink about my emailed complaints on this topic," said Ms. Juntti.

As reported by NewsBusters, the most recent widespread occurrence of this unexplained phenomenon was when Frank Salvato, proprietor of The New Media Journal, realized that his content that day hadn't been disseminated at Google News as it had been on a daily basis since he reached an agreement with the search engine in September 2005.

After sending the Google Help Desk a query concerning the matter, Salvato was informed that there had been complaints of "hate speech" at his website, and as a result, The New Media Journal would no longer be part of Google News. As evidence of his offense, the Google Team supplied Salvato with links to three recent op-eds published by his contributing writers, all coincidentally about radical Islam and its relation to terrorism.

According to a recent WND news article American Airlines is blocking WorldNetDaily as a "hate site." "WoldNetDaily is anything but, all they do is report the truth, since when is truth hate?"

As a sidebar, the NewsBusters article that first broke this story on May 19 cannot be found by doing a Google News search even though other recent articles by NewsBusters can.

To be sure, there have been complaints in the past from conservative bloggers that internet service providers seem to have dubious requirements to be a part of its News Crawl. In February 2005, Michelle Malkin spoke of the difficulties she was having becoming part of Google News. At roughly the same time, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs also complained about not being being excluded by internet services.

However, the biggest example of censorship appears to be the blocking of e-mail from conservative web sites such as NewswithViews.com. NWV e-mail is treated as spam in spite of the fact that readers voluntarily sign up for the newsletter.

NewswithViews.com subscriber Mary Gasser reported to this writer that she's already found five conservative newsletters including NWV being blocked by her server SBC Global, which is owned by AT&T.

"It's crazy how these people just decide to block e-mail and treat it as spam, but they treat spam as legitimate e-mail," says Ms. Gasser.

Few knowledgeable people question the existence of bias in the media, although there is debate about the slant. However, it is conceivable that few folks have considered the possibility of Internet news aggregators possessing such partiality, and, maybe more important, the ramifications.

Beyond this, Google appears intimately tied to former vice president and potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. It is no secret that Gore is a senior advisor to Google, a position that garnered him a sizable number of shares according to Fox News political analyst Susan Estrich. On May 19's The Big Story, Estrich discussed with host John Gibson Gore's connection with Google, and how the wealth generated from the shares he owns in the Internet behemoth could give him enough money to finance his own presidential campaign.

NWV contacted Earthlink and was directed to their company's policy on spam blocking:

Known spam blocking detects messages from known spammers on EarthLink servers and intercepts them before they reach your inbox. These messages are automatically sent to your "Known spam" folder, where you can view the messages before deleting them. This level of protection works regardless of your email program.

Suspect email blocking allows you to only receive email from the people in your address book. All other email will be sent to the "Suspect Email" folder until you have approved the sender.

Note: Legitimate emails coming from EarthLink will NOT be filtered and will ALWAYS be delivered directly to your inbox. You should NEVER accept a blocked email that ended up in one of your spam folders just because it APPEARS to be from EarthLink.

Political strategist Mike Baker of New Jersey is suspicious of Earthlink and SBC Global. He wonders how customers continue to receive unsolicited information on penis enhancement, get-rich-quick schemes, and pharmaceutical products but their requested political e-mail is blocked by their Internet provider.

"I've personally had desired e-mail blocked by IP servers, but I get regular e-mail on how to enlarge my sex organ or how to buy controlled substances on the internet," says Baker.

When this reporter contacted SBC Global -- which recently merged with Yahoo! -- I was directed to their spam protection policy:

The SBC Global email account includes SpamGuard, a filtering system designed to reduce spam in your inbox by directing most bulk messages to a bulk mail folder. This filtering system is automatically activated when you upgrade to SBC Yahoo! DSL.

When our automatic filter determines that a message was sent in bulk, SpamGuard generates a bulk mail folder and sends the bulk message to this folder instead of your inbox. This technique aims to deliver only emails that you've requested to your Inbox. However, we may occasionally send these messages to your bulk mail folder. If this occurs, let us know by clicking the This is not Spam link on the message itself.

Messages remain in your bulk mail folder for a minimum of 30 days unless you delete them yourself. After 30 days, the messages are removed automatically. You may wish to empty your bulk mail folder yourself on a periodic basis by deleting all unsolicited messages that have been placed there. This will free up your online email storage space.

Please be aware that the bulk mail folder doesn't generate Spam, and does not create additional mail. The system only directs incoming bulk messages addressed to you to a different folder.

Conservative activist Kathy Lehman is also complaining about her IP server, Earthlink. She states that when she called customer service she spoke for over a half-hour with a representative overseas, but finally hung up when she discovered she wasn't making any headway.

"I've since switched to another server in order to get my conservative publications and newsletters such as NewswithViews.com," said Ms. Lehman.

"Dealing with their customer service people was like dealing with crazy people."

Clearwire & Quest DSL

badgerrr — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:36:03 GMT

I'm looking at maybe getting some better ISP than dial-up.

Anyone have opinions on Clearwire or Quest DSL? Am especially interested in experiances from the Thurston area, but any info would be appreciated.

Local Wi-Fi Access

badgerrr — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:08:25 GMT

Hey Folks, great news, the wife bought me a laptop for my Birthday!

Thing is, the critter has got this Vista loaded on it. My Netscape dial-up can't gronk Vista yet. So if I want online with this bad boy, it's off to the local wi-fi hotspot for me. ( We can't bloody well afford hi-speed for the house)

But now the big thing is, just where are the best hotspots in the Eugene/Springfield area? Fourtunately one can search online and pull up a few, but all the lists are hit & miss. So maybe we should start listing the good ones on here. I was just at the Spfld Library this morning and everything went off without a hitch.

Right now I'm writting from Bagel Sphere on Main Street (next to the Bi-Mart). I only know about this one cause they just put up a sign. Was listed NOWHERE online that I seen.

Understand the McDonalds are a good bet. You have to watch a little 15 second online commercial to get an access code; but there's lots of Micky D's that have Wi-Fi . (but not all.....like the one up here on East Main Street The one on Mohawk has it though.)

Understand the Woodsman and the Village Inn have it too - but can't speak from personal experiance yet.

Ok..this is a good start. Let's start listing them babies and throwing an editorial in on the experiance would just be icing on the cake.

Internet Tax/ Ban expires this year

Cassandra — Fri, 25 May 2007 00:37:26 GMT

Politicians weigh renewal of Net access tax ban

State governments say they want to be able to levy new taxes on access and oppose an unfettered extension of the federal ban that expires this fall.

By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

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Published: May 22, 2007, 3:26 PM PDT

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WASHINGTON--With only months left on a moratorium restricting state governments from taxing Internet access, the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday began a debate over whether the ban should be made permanent or allowed to lapse.

At issue is the scheduled expiration on November 1 of a law, initially enacted in 1998, that says local governments generally cannot tax Internet access, including DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission services. The law also prohibits governments from taxing items sold online in a different manner than those sold at brick-and-mortar stores, but it does not deal with sales taxes on online shopping.

That's the way it should remain, some politicians said at a brief hearing here convened by a House of Representatives panel on commercial and administrative law.

Related podcast
Tech Politics Rundown

Former House Majority Leader *** Armey talks to News.com
about Internet taxation.

"If we could liken the Internet to a mall, a place where you can go in and purchase goods and services, and also liken it to a library, a place where you can go and pull a book, pull a resource, and obtain some information, why would we tax a person upon entering a mall or why would we tax a person upon entering the library?" asked Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia.

Industries that provide Internet access services have long backed making the ban permanent, and they already enjoy support from some members of Congress. In the House, Rep. Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, has introduced such a measure, and senators have made similar moves.

But previous attempts at renewing the ban for more than two to four years have failed, in part because of resistance from state and local government lobby groups. State government representatives caution against making the moratorium permanent, saying it would deprive states indefinitely of vital revenue sources and that its original purpose--boosting the nascent Internet to commercial viability--has essentially been accomplished.

A 'slippery slope'
"If a moratorium is made permanent, there is a slippery slope where other industries will seek their own preemptions of state laws," said David Quam, director of federal relations for the National Governors Association.

The NGA supports the idea of extending the ban in a limited sense and for a defined time period, he added. He said reports by government auditors and the University of Tennessee have shown no statistical correlation between levels of broadband penetration and the existence of Internet access taxes.

Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and one of 66 House members who co-sponsored the permanent ban proposal, suggested he wasn't swayed by that argument. "Taxes always impact everything else in our economy," he said. "I would assume they've had a major impact in this area as well."

As a rule, economists dislike taxes that could discourage investment, but taxes that could hinder build-out of the Internet are especially problematic, argued Scott Mackey, an economist and partner at the law firm Kimbell Sherman Ellis. He spoke on behalf of a coalition of Internet service providers, "backbone" providers and application and content companies that support a permanent extension of the tax ban.

"A permanent moratorium will send a strong, pro-investment signal to those entrepreneurs that are looking to improve communications and commerce over the Internet," he told the politicians.

A U.S. Senate committee is scheduled to weigh the issue at its own hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

A separate issue on one politician's mind was what to do about the collection of sales taxes on the Internet. State governments have long griped that they are losing revenue to booming e-commerce businesses that aren't required to collect taxes from customers in states where the businesses don't have a physical presence. Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said he was planning to try again at enacting a bill designed to address those concerns.

As for the Net tax ban, he said, "my own position is we ought to have a temporary moratorium until we finally resolve the issue of how the states are going to support public services with an eroding tax base predicated on the growth of e-commerce."

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