Canadian Telco Admits to Blocking Union's Website 689
Nogami_Saeko writes "Canadian telephone company and ISP "Telus" has admitted that they are 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 union's webpage. Is it reasonable for an ISP to censor webpages they don't agree with during contract negotiations?"
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it their network? (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line here is, if a consumer does not like the actions that a corporation is taking, then they can vote with their money by using a competing service.
When the government is behind censorship that is different - if something is publicly funded then it should publicly available (generally speaking and within reason of course).
I can't see this lasting (Score:5, Insightful)
I do hope it doesn't last. Dirty pool indeed.
They're screwed (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure (Score:2, Insightful)
It's their infrastructure, they can do what they want with it, unless they have contracts saying they will not. If they want to point every request to zombo.com [zombo.com] they can. That said, if I was one of their customers and found out about this type of censorship I'd consider switching. It seems like a pretty underhanded practice.
Re:Is it their network? (Score:5, Insightful)
No it's not reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
They should simply.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct me if I'm wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if they were blocking the independently-hosted union.com, they'd be where they had no business to be, and that would obviously be wrong. That's what this story implies is going on. But from TFAs I've been looking at, it's that they're deciding what can be hosted on their own servers. Absolutely their right.
Re:Sure (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like if I fly American Airlines to Chicago then go murder 800 people. Did AA "aid a criminal"? No they're a common carrier who flies anyone who is eligible.
Similarly if Telus takes up the job of filtering and re-routing specific traffic then they're responsible for [say] viruses or other malware I may stumble upon. They're no longer a common carrier if they deny access to legitimate eligible traffic.
I'm not taking any sides in the strike/business issue. Personally I think quite a few "big corps" are getting away with too much b.s. these days. That said I also think having no job is worse than having a job that doesn't pay fairly.
Though I guess at some point you have to take a stand and demand your share of the proverbial pie.
Tom
They hava a contractual obligation (Score:1, Insightful)
The customers, not the union (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it their network? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lastly it is highly likely they are breaking contracts with the people who lease their lines to provide their own interenet service.
Honestly free speech should carry over to communcation channels regardless of who owns them.
How would you like it if the phone company monitored your conversations and censored what they thought was inappropriate (it'd be illegal). But are you honestly advocating that you should just switch phone companies?
Re:They should simply.. (Score:3, Insightful)
You want control? Sure, you've got it. But you get responsibility (liability), too...
Re:They should simply.. (Score:2, Insightful)
This may backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, we have a telecoms company deciding unilateraly to filter a website because they feel like it. If they can filter one, they may find themselves liable to filter all of the others. Imagine the court case
Lawyer: You must block goatse.ca because it is offensive to all mankind
Telco: We can't be expected proactively police and block websites: too much information, freedom of speech, etc, etc,
Lawyer: But what about that time you blocked your union website? You can block "offensive" material when you want to.
Telco: Um...
Re:Is it their network? (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't have a right to broadband, just because you can't get what you want, doesn't mean Comcast should be forced to give it to you.
Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
My opinion is "no".
The truth is, even though they're an ISP, they're still a private company (as opposed to say a government entity), and can do anything they want. It's understandable that while involved in a conflict, they'd want to suppress the opposing side. Is it right? Not in the least.
I don't know Canadian law, and IANAL, but in America I know your Constitutional right to freedom of speech applies to the government supressing your speech. Plenty of people will reference the "yelling fire in a crowded theater" scenerio, but I'll go with this one instead. If you were to go into a Christian church, and draw a circle of protection on the floor (in a non-permanent way, of course), and start a [insert pagan tradition of your chioce here] ceremony, you'd be told to stop, probably not in the nicest terms.
Is it right for the telco to block the union's site from customers using that telco? No. Can they? Sure. Just like they can arbitrarly block "bad" web sites, spammers email or networks, or even potentially exploitable ports on user machines. They can do anything they'd like with their own equipment, they're under no obligation to provide service to "everything". Of course, when the word gets out that they've blocked something like this, which isn't in the best interest of their customers, it looks very bad for them.
As I work for an Internet Provider (hosting provider), I consider it unacceptable to block any particular network, and I won't do it. As a journalist and an advocate of free speech, I consider it very wrong. People do wrong things every day, it's up to the customers to make the decision of if they want to patronize a company who behaves this way.
Re:Is it their network? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. Did the contract these people agreed to in order to get service mention "oh by the way, we censor websites that we don't like?
Your "vote with your wallet" crap requires an informed marketplace, which is anathema to today's megacorporations which thrive on lies and greed. This is one of the reasons I pay extra to not get a yearly contract for my ISP: I can't trust them to not pull shit on me with their vaguely worded "bandwidth limits" which they can't just tell me what they are, and other trash like that.
No... but... (Score:4, Insightful)
But, this is not censorship. This is a service that you pay for and you expect to be delivered to you. Additionally, the union has absolutely no expectation of delivery to customers of that telco. If they did, then services like safeaccess [safeaccess.com] couldn't exist. Every pornographer in the world could run around and demand that parents allow thier children to view porn.
Is this unreasonable? Yes. And it will likely cost them (lost customers, time fighting with annoyed customers, small claims court).
Re:No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Letting these guys run their businesses this way is tantamount to letting the guys who run the toll roads just not allow vans from their competing companies run on their roads. We'd never allow this on other critical infrastructure, why the heck should we allow it on the internet, THE crictical infrastructure for the 21st century.
TW
How very super capitalist of you... (Score:2, Insightful)
Would you expect the phone company to block your home phone from being able to call up a competing phone company to discuss changing service? Essentially, this is the kind of thing that is going on via blocking the web-site of something that doesn't directly benefit this telecommunications provider.
Re:No. (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless it is more profitable to do so.
For example, cell providers could simply provide a data service instead of application service. $N for x MB of data (and maybe $M for y MB of real-time data), and the rest is up to you. That would produce a market in which many companies are trying to figure out how to build and sell the applications that consume the least amount of data. Instead, though, cell providers would prefer to be able to price discriminate based on application usage. So instead of being a data transport service, they retain their vertical monpoly.
I mean, if I could get away with it, I'd do it too. It's profitable.
strike vs. lock-out (Score:2, Insightful)
grammar aside, a strike vs. a lock-out is not simply a matter of opinion, although in some cases both can happen at the same time. (a strike is when the workers walk out, and a lock-out is when workers aren't allowed to work.) it's hard to tell which is which in this case, although the article made reference to both. clearly it started with workers going on strike. since the union is saying that management was trying to push through a non-negotiated contract, and since one of the accusations from management is that the website they're blocking was putting up pictures of scabs for the purpose of harrassment, it seems more likely that this is a strike only, and not a lock-out.
Re:Now down for the rest of it (Score:5, Insightful)
- Your book store isn't a regional monopoly. Telus is.
- Your book store isn't a common carrier - Telus is (but may have just jeopardized that status)
- Telus isn't hosting the site - its blocking its paying customers from seeing a site critical of it - this would be like the book store physically preventing its customers from shopping elsewhere for books "because it can"
Telus - their motto is "The future is friendly" - my guess it should be changed to "Telus - The future is Telus-friendly, citizen!" TRe:Now down for the rest of it (Score:1, Insightful)
Including all the spam, kiddy porn, hate speech etc.
There is a difference (Score:5, Insightful)
A strike is where management is ready to negotiate a deal, but the workers refuse to talk, and refuse to work in the meantime under the old contract.
It is wrong to suggest that the choice of phrase is made to influence public opinion about the situation. A "lock-out" and a "strike" represent two very different situations.
Re:Is it their network? (Score:1, Insightful)
I can't believe you have any compassion for people who breach contract. Or, should I say, companies. Something tells me you would have a HUGE problem if a person breached contract.
Don't sign it if you don't mean it. Pretty fucking simple concept. Even worse, for Telus, is the fact that they wrote the fucking thing.
Re:They should simply.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There is a difference (Score:2, Insightful)
thank-you.
Re:Let's be accurate here (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, yes it is. Regardless of the merit or lack thereof of the website. Is the content of the website within the bounds of CA law? Then it's black & white censorship and Telus should fuck off. Is the content of the website beyond whats acceptable to CA law? Then Telus should follow the guidelines established by CA law, instead of taking it upon themselves to censor the content.
When it comes to information Caveat Emptor.
Pretty fucking hard to take your information with a grain of salt when your ISP won't let you look at it , is it?
Telus is clearly outside the bounds of reasonable behavior. If the website is dangerous, or libelous, or any of those other things they claim, then there are clear and effective legal channels to follow. Cutting off access because they don't like it is ridiculous. Moreover, it's stupid, because assuming CA law is similiar to US in this regard (which I believe it is), they just lost common carrier status.
Re:They should simply.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I call BS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unions are old and broken.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I hate trolls almost as much as you hate unions, but I'll still feed you.
The problem is the the other "gawd damn job" is probably no better than the original one. Do you honestly expect someone who is qualified to work at Wal-Mart to have the skills necessary to be able to obtain good enough employment to secure a living wage and proper healthcare benefits without the help of a union to use the strength of numbers to force management to provide such things? Of course not. It just won't happen.
Sure, you'll read about how "gracious" some employers are and give all these great things to their employees, but it remains that Wal-Mart's execs have some of the deepest pockets in the country. They go on and on about how much they give to the communities they destroy, and yet, they can't afford to give their own employees enough money to stay off of government healthcare. The simple fact is that most employers do not care about employees. They care about the bottom line.
It's not as easy as "going somewhere else." Without unions, your taxes would have to be double to pay for all the poor and sick people we'd have in this country.
The problem with unions today isn't that they've ran out of their usefulness. The problem is that they're still suffering from corruption of the past and mismanagement.
The arguments you make in your post are the same arguments that have been made for hundreds of years, and they were proven wrong then as well.
Also, I recall quite clearly a report that out of grocers in my area (Southwest Ohio), those with unions actually had lower average prices on the same products compared to those without unions. So much for that theory.
Your hatred of working people (Score:0, Insightful)
Hope this helps. '
The "scabs" would not even be there if you weren't too lazy and greedy to do the job. If you don't like the job, quit it and find another. A striker is nothing more than a quitter who is too lazy to find another job and who is so mean he has to spend all day insulting the real workers.
' The people on the picket lines are trying to support their family too. '
Nothing could be further from the truth. They aren't supporting their family by lazing about and insulting real working people. If they wanted to support their family, they would work. Strikers are lazy, mean, and greedy, and should get out of the way of real working people.
" Scabs are the fucking traitors who side with the bosses to make life more difficult for everyone."
These real workers side with everyone except the lazy quitters who harass workers (strikers). The job needs to be done, especially in a major important utility. By showing up to do the needed work, they help everyone.
All a "scab" does is dare to be a productive worker. They steal nothing. They earn everything they get by doing something productive. They fill in jobs that strikers throw away. if the strikers actually wanted the jobs, they would be working at them instead of lazing about.
Scabs are part of the healing process..
Re:Now down for the rest of it (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Telus is clearly in the wrong here. If they think the site is that bad, they should get a take-down order from the courts. Then I would have no problem with them blocking the site, and perhaps forcing the hosting ISP to take down the site.
Re:Is it their network? (Score:3, Insightful)
In all fairness, while being a little higher cost than I'd like Comcast has been fairly decent to me, even though they are the only reasonable broadband service available to me. Of course, a big part of keeping the irresponsible elements in Comcast in check are the anti-trust laws. (there are no evil companies, just bad people who have too much influence in those companies.)
Re:Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure blocking access to a website neccessarily takes away their common carrier status. Just because they are blocking a website they don't like, does not mean they have taken responsibility for filtering anything other than this group. It would be an interesting lawsuit.
Re:They're screwed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unions are old and broken.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Corporations tend to have a huge, centralized pile of resources like money and property, which allows them to absorb minor losses without even blinking.
For example, if a worker quits in protest of working conditions, or even sabatoges work equipment, it has almost zero effect on the bottom line of the corporation, but a huge effect on the worker's livelihood.
Clearly, most advocates of free enterprise acknowledge the right of businesses to merge and centralize their money and property for the purpose of getting a competitive advantage.
Why, then, are so many opposed to the centralization of labor in a similar "corporation" called a union? Is forming a union not equally as capitalist as forming a corporation?
I really don't get it, but I come from a totally different perspective. If someone can explain, please do.
Re:Now down for the rest of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you ever been to a Union's Web site and seen what takes place? It's no wonder they didn't shut the server down the moment they broke off talks.
First off, Union's suck. I know all you "liberal socialist" folks out there will hoot and yell about how I'm spouting off, but if you track how Union's work and how they take advantage of big businesses by holding them hostage or if you've ever owned a business (like I have) that dealt with Union's, you'll start to see the seedy and dark side of how Union's work -- ALL of them.
Union's are basically nothing but a bunch of crooks who get paid a lot of money to make sure the "pack" gets just enough to be happy. Mostly they negotiate contracts that better the Union management and mainly throw a bone to the union members so they can get free health care, better benefits and basically lots of pay for otherwise menial work that anyone can do.
Let's face it, Union's were important 100 years ago, now they are costing businesses big money and it all boils down to the cost of goods -- which we end up paying.
I have experience with this first hand and I'll tell you what, the moment my executive team started talking about "replacements" was the moment of clarity for the company when they realized that they would not pushed around by a mob that was trying to make them pay OUTRAGOUS benefits to people who were lazy and living the good life getting paid $34 an hour to basically stand around. The sad reality? Over time, these "workers" were replaced with college kids, immigrants and people that looked at the job as a "stepping stone", not a frigging career with Union benefits that they could stay for 20 years and cost the company millions. Basically, the company went non-union and hasn't looked back. Sure, it pissed off a lot of people and there were Union threats, bottles and rocks being thrown, death threats and anything you'd imagine from a bully Union.
Some people reading this would start down the path of "maybe people like those jobs". Bullshit, nobody likes to stand there for 8 hours and put a cap on a jar, or move something along an assembly line. But hell, if they were being paid $34 an hour plus full medical, you'd have a line waiting for people to grab the job. The problem is, the product price has to go up, and the profits go down. The job was never built for someone to make that kind of money and the company (which is family owned) got forced into accepting the union into their business back in the 50's and it up until the end, the Union was costing them millions and millions of dollars.
Re:Unions are old and broken.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So many of us are opposed to it since it is forced on the workers against their will. At least in the US it is: most union members are part of "closed shops" where it is "join this organization or you will be fired". Much of my opposition to unions as such would vanish if they became legitimate organizations, and only took money from individuals who wanted to contribute it. I detest organizations that operate largely on stolen/extorted money.
This is very different from the capitalists forming a corporation: an operation that requires complete consent of those pooling the resources and signing the documents.
'Clearly, most advocates of free enterprise...'
That is the important thing. Free enterprise. It certainly is not very free if, as a condition of working, you are forced to join an organization that has absolutely nothing to do with your ability or qualifications to do the job.
Both sides are out of hand (Score:3, Insightful)
Telus has some notorious issues with how they run the business, service customers, and pay their subcontractors.
The union is, however, living in a fantasy world. Rates for telecom services have dropped over the past several years. There is competition from broadband phone services (including vonage.ca), alternative cellular providers, and alternative ISPs. The days of the near monopoly by the big provincial telcos are over, as are the obscene profits they used to generate.
Unions will simply have to accept that the telco and computer industries of 2005 are being hit by the same kind of competition that destroyed local manufacturing firms 15-20 years ago. Demanding huge salary increases, guaranteed jobs, etc. is completely unrealistic.
Telus, OTOH, needs to realize that pimp-slapping their customers, their staff, and their suppliers is no way to run a business. They're also living in an old fantasy world where the telcos got away with such nonsense because they were a near monopoly.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
- Microsoft should disallow access to the Firefox/insert other browsers sites from IE in a default Windows Install
- ISP can block your email because you tell a friend not to use them
- ISP can stop you from reading
/. because they contain a report about them blocking a site
Sure, you can switch to a different ISP if you aren't on a contract or the like. But what if you just think the site is down, and go "Oh well, the union must have pulled it?" Seems like deception to me...Re:Is it their network? (Score:3, Insightful)
Regardless of whether or not they forfeit their 'common carrier' designation by doing so, their 'rights' as a company are, in this case, clearly superceded by their responsibilities as a carrier. The Union is no more an asset or product of Telus than is Slashdot, and as such, Telus' right to limit presence/distribution are EXTREMELY limited. More they are a party actively involved in litigation/arbitration, and Telus did not engage in such filtering before the dispute. That places the action squarely in the punitive arena - which is a very dangerous place for any carrier - common or otherwise - to be.
Re:Is it their network? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line here is, if a consumer does not like the actions that a corporation is taking, then they can vote with their money by using a competing service.
Great idea, in fact I think I'll string up some cable lines and start a competing service so others can... wait what do you mean I can't? The government has granted them a monopoly on the use of those poles, underground conduits, and publicly owned right of ways to prevent there from being too many lines up? Well now. That's different isn't it? Since they are a government sponsored monopoly I guess the free market can't effectively decide now can it?
Please in future actually to make sure that when you are rabidly espousing unfettered free market economics that situation you are talking about is a free market, not a government sponsored monopoly. They don't have to compete thanks to the government, thus they have to work in the public interest as much as needed. Censoring their competitors or unions is obviously not in the public interest.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I heard, people paid for use of their property, and weren't party to an agreement of "we'll fuck around with the content you access to our heart's content if it might have an impact on our stock prices". You might even say the expectation was somewhat the opposite.
But right, all that "capitalism is about the enlightened freedom of choice" nonsense only applies to the people who actually own the most property, no?
Locked out, but not Quickly! (Score:3, Insightful)
Management has allowed them to continue working without a contract for a number of years now.
What the union wants is guaranteed job security. Problem is, they're clinging to contracts written back when they were working under a government-owned business with 20 year old technology. Now they work for a for-profit company in a truly global technical world. They want to barricade the door and keep out the future.
Alas, I can't see it.
Nor do I care. Telus staff have screwed up everything I've ever asked of them.
The new contract is long on everything else, including a promise to try to relocate within the company if outsourcing occurs. I have no sympathy for these people.
Unions were necessary at one point. I don't believe they are necessary now. Especially at Telus. Non-union workers at Telus are not underpaid and are looked after pretty well. It's the union that is responsible for the stagnant wages.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is it their network? (Score:1, Insightful)
If an ISP such as Comcast owns all the cable runs in an area, and they refuse to resell access to competing ISPs, then they are a de facto monopoly. The cost of deploying new cable runs is far too high for most companies to do so, and it would be impossible for local infrastructure to handle a new set of cables for each ISP that wanted to compete. Therefore, it is not possible to compete in cable broadband in an area that has the physical cables controlled by one company. Now, guess what that's called?
PS: It doesn't have to be government supported to be a monopoly (just ask Microsoft)
PPS: You're an ass.
Re:Now down for the rest of it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No... but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes it is. You can argue that this is censorship that the Telco has the right to impose (and in fact you seem to be making that argument) but it is in fact censorship.
Every pornographer in the world could run around and demand that parents allow thier children to view porn.
Parents have broad rights to censor the information their children have access to. There's nothing inherently wrong with censorship in appropriate circumstances, such as in the parent-child relationship, or when a publisher produces a work in different versions to satisfy different ratings in different countries.
Their contract w/ their customers "own"ing (Score:5, Insightful)
"Own"ing assets does not give you absolute power over what you do with them.
- Just because an airline owns the plane, it doesn't mean they can throw passengers out the windows. (that's illegal)
- Just because a landlord owns an apartment, it doesn't mean he can control his residents setting up wireless networks. (that's the FCC's job)
- Just because a telephone company owns some wires doesn't mean they can re-route calls to their prefered customers (as Sprint was accused of doing in Las Vegas when people called prostitutes)
Ownership is one thing - but when you have a customer you have to abide by the contract with your customer. For an ISP ("internet service provider") that means "providing" "internet" "service" -- something that they're breaching if they block the union site..Re:Unions are old and broken.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Union security clauses in contracts just prevent free riders: in states where these clauses are illegal (talk about elimination of freedom of contract!) what usually happens is that a bunch of employees decide they want the benefits of the union (much higher wages) without paying the people who work at the union to provide these benefits.
Don't want to pay for union representation? That's fine! Go work for a company that is non-union. Don't want to do that because the wages suck? Hmm.
-Daniel
P.S. All unions in the USA are democratic, by law. So if the majority of people under the contract want to get rid of it, it's gone.
Also, in the USA, there is actually no such thing as a closed shop. Google "Union Agency Fee" for more information.
Re:Unions are old and broken.. (Score:1, Insightful)
and the lazy (those who want to maximize their income for minimal labour).
I call bullshit here. Every employee should be out to maximize their income for minimal labour. It is certainly a major goal for every business owner. I believe its called increasing productivity. Why there is a double standard here is pretty obvious though.
Just love your anti-worker attitude.
Re:No. (Score:1, Insightful)
track how Union's work
that dealt with Union's
dark side of how Union's work
Union's are basically nothing but
Union's were important
"unions", "Unions".
Re:Censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, as a private company, they should be allowed to do whatever they want within the law (like, they can't murder people), and this certainly fits within that margin (assuming U.S. law were to apply, I'm not sure what if any differences there might be in Canada. Sorry, I'm just not that worldly...)
However, once they're allowed to do things like run on telephone poles placed in people's backyards through laws like emminent domain (which is how it works in the States, at least), they lose some of those rights. They are no long a purely private company. They are in the same situation as, say, a municipal bus service, like Metro (I live in Houston, that's our bus/light rail authority). By using government powers to provide a public service (which is what they claimed they were providing when the put those poles up) they must submit to the rules governing government, as well.
At the very least, though, what they are doing is fraud. They told the government and the public, oftentimes in court, that they could not be held responsible for what is carried through their network because they could not control it. They are now proving that they can, in fact, control and censor it. When people signed up and signed contracts to give them "access to the internet", they were expecting, as the company had said, that they would be getting access to an uncesored network, the internet, because the company was unable to censor it. This changed, and the company began giving them access to a censored network, which is fundamentally different than what they signed up for. They either lied about being able to censor the internet at first or are no longer supplying the same service as required by their contract.
Basically, any way you look at it, this company is doing something very illegal on one level or another, and the government has the obligation to step in and do something. If nothing else, by granting public use and monopoly powers to companies like these, the government has the responsibility to step in and punish the company as they have taken that ability away from the consumer.
Free speech, not censorship. (Score:2, Insightful)
The "government censorship" you refer to is just one of those redundant terms that floats around. Excuse me while I go to use my ATM machine.