North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Transit politics (Telus blocking sites it does not like)

  • From: Patrick W. Gilmore
  • Date: Mon Jul 25 10:07:11 2005 
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