Verizon Screws Their Usenet Customers

[bitshifter]

Everyone who uses VZ just received the following message:

Dear Verizon Online Customer,

As a Verizon Newsgroup service user, we wanted to let you know about some important changes that we will soon be making to our Newsgroup service.

On June 24, 2008, we will be modifying our Newsgroup offerings to only offer groups in the Big-8 Newsgroup hierarchies, which are listed below. The 0.verizon.* newsgroup hierarchy will also continue to be available. Users will not be able to post or download from any other newsgroups using our Newsgroup service.

comp.*
humanities.*
misc.*
news.*
rec.*
sci.*
soc.*
talk.*

More details regarding the Big 8 newsgroup hierarchies is available at: http://www.big-8.org/.

This change will not affect your Internet access service. If you would like to subscribe to newsgroups other than those we offer, you will need to subscribe to a separate commercial news service. Please note that your use of any such service is still subject to our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

There are no changes required to your software, but you will need to unsubscribe from all Newsgroups other than the Big 8 hierarchies and the 0.verizon.* hierarchy noted above. The following link explains how to subscribe and unsubscribe in Outlook Express:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171190

IMPORTANT: If you continue to subscribe to unsupported newsgroups, you may experience poor computer performance and slow throughput speeds. Failure to unsubscribe may also interfere with the functioning of the Verizon network or use of the network by other Verizon users, which is a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.

We appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to serve you in the future.

Sincerely,


Verizon Online

[drtoker]

Well I dont know about verizon, but comcast only gives 1gb dl per month, so anyone serious about the groups would have another provider already.

[wapazoid]

The last time I accessed binary groups through my ISP was in '02. Cox had throttled speeds, 256kbps I believe. ISP's squashing usenet access isn't very surprising, considering what it's mainly used for.

[trjtrj65]

My ISP is Road Runner (Time Warner) and they too have ended newsgroups for subscribers. They take away a feature many of us used and have not reduced our monthly subscription fee. I am not happy.

I used newsgroups for many years, and not for naughty pictures or copyrighted mp3s. I found good advice on how to configure several PCs I built or upgraded. I liked alt.comp. periphs..., rec.radio.scanner and alt.security.ppg and other sites too. These big media companies want to sell us their sh!t and not let us get free stuff or free news.

[Mels_Smileys45]

I didn't know anyone still cared about ISP newsgroups since they suck so bad. Its like a free piece of shit....who wants it?




I used newsgroups for many years.... I found good advice on how to configure several PCs I built or upgraded.



I hear the kids are using the google now days.

[yafolk]

I didn't know anyone still cared about ISP newsgroups since they suck so bad. Its like a free piece of shit....who wants it?

I want it my ISP BellSouth now AT&T has full speed downloads with 8 days retention. I use newsgroups more than bittorrent.

[trjtrj65]

I want it my ISP BellSouth now AT&T has full speed downloads with 8 days retention. I use newsgroups more than bittorrent.
User yafolk mentioned AT&T still allows its subscribers access to Usenet/newsgroups. Is that so for other branches of AT&T such as the area serving the upper Midwest? I may switch to it if AT&T gets fiber connections to my area as I don't want to go back to DSL.

[Sephiroth]

Yeah this move was done because NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (Democrat) said that his office found child porn on some of the newsgroups and worked with the ISPs to remove them. He is quoted as saying, "We are attacking this problem by working with Internet service providers...I commend the companies that have stepped up today to embrace a new standard of responsibility, which should serve as a model for the entire industry."

-source (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9967119-38.html)

So pretty much he lobbied to have the ISPs remove all newsgroups not just the offending ones. He goes on to grandstand with the comment like above boasting how he is enforcing his standard of responsibility on the internet.

I bet it he was a republican there would be a thread with a hundred posts flaming him and republicans. Yet I guess its acceptable when a Democrat broadly censors online and imposes his standard of responsibility on all users and then go on to try to exploit it to make him look good. These internet issues are not partisan, and I hope this serves as a wake up call but since this is ZP I am not counting on it.

[trjtrj65]

Newsgroups and Usenet already had standards of use and faqs that said no child porn was to be posted and no spammer was to mass spam nasty pics inviting readers to a particular web site. Most groups had volunteer moderators that deleted such junk from the group within a short time.

NY AG Andy Cuomo is just gettiing attention and leaning on ISPs to run next time for Gov. or Senator. How responsible is it to wreck all newsgroups just becase of a few bad posts? The Internet was supposed to be open, not censored like in Red China or Singapore. Next it will be an attack on blogs as politicians don't like media they can't control.

[drtoker]

NY AG Andy Cuomo is just gettiing attention and leaning on ISPs to run next time for Gov. or Senator. How responsible is it to wreck all newsgroups just becase of a few bad posts? The Internet was supposed to be open, not censored like in Red China or Singapore. Next it will be an attack on blogs as politicians don't like media they can't control.

From what I understand (and I could be missing something here), only the newsgroup access provided by the ISP is being affected. If you subscribe to any other service (newshosting etc...) then you can still get your newsgroups, thus, it is not censored. Plus there are still a few free news group providers around doing basically the same thing as these ISP's are, restricting access to certain groups.

[Observant]

I bet it he was a republican there would be a thread with a hundred posts flaming him and republicans. Yet I guess its acceptable when a Democrat broadly censors online and imposes his standard of responsibility on all users and then go on to try to exploit it to make him look good. These internet issues are not partisan, and I hope this serves as a wake up call but since this is ZP I am not counting on it.

Yeah, let's all pull together on this, and not try to exploit anything. It's not a partisan issue.

Hey, do Republicans know what irony is?

[Sephiroth]

Yeah, let's all pull together on this, and not try to exploit anything. It's not a partisan issue.

Hey, do Republicans know what irony is?

I think its pathetic that you created a new account just to troll me. I don't really understand why, are you afraid of me or maybe you agree with Cuomo?

There is no irony here, both parties have screwed over people for a long time. The only thing ironic is that you think otherwise. Here is a Democrat censoring usenet for all major ISPs in the US just to further his political ambitions and the first thing you can think of doing is to troll me for bringing it up.

I think you might want to get your priorities straight.

[Observant]

If you had your priorities straight, you would have assailed Cuomo for his action without gratuitously ranting about parties, and then hypocritically telling us this is not a partisan issue. Now you tell me that I'm trolling. Rich.

I created a new account to respond because it was required to post. I don't know why you infer that I fear you, but it raises the obvious question: Should I? Are you threatening me?

There no logical reason why anything I wrote should imply that I agree with Cuomo, regardless of the words you tried to put in my mouth. All that an intelligent reader should deduce is related to your gratuitous smear. Whether that really needs to be explained to you is an open question.

[kippies]

yeah well anyway...most mainstream politics suck

Virgin have outsourced their News feeds, now only seven days retention but binary multiparts intact and speed is good- about the best you expect from an ISP for free (BTW im not a fan of Virgin , reference the net neutrality thing but its a a nice perk)- as mentioned above if your serious about newsgroups a paid account is a must...

on the issue of getting prosecuted for downloading off a newsgroup as long as your not a fan of CP its pretty much a remote possibility as most cases are brought against uploaders or people "making available for upload" its not safe but its lower risk

and the whole "banning groups for posting CP" is pretty much obviously a smoke screen, what they are after are banning alt.binaries to stop copyright infringement..

Im afraid large corporations have the $ to organise such a campaign , the innocent victims of pedophiles dont have $ and dont vote, therefore there are few politicians who give a rats ass about them- :icon_scra

Personally I would advocate flooding the newsgroups with alleged CP related content and logging the IP of anyone downloading such files then watch their connections from now till forever with the sole intention of deploying a SWAT team to their house the first time they stepped out of line...

However our society seems to think Britney Spears et all deserves more protection than innocent children so keep voting republican/democrat/tory/labour to keep the status quo


</rant>

can we have a new rule to ban political debates? :devil2 i far prefer the fart debates

[Observant]

yeah well anyway...most mainstream politics suck

on the issue of getting prosecuted for downloading off a newsgroup as long as your not a fan of CP its pretty much a remote possibility as most cases are brought against uploaders or people "making available for upload" its not safe but its lower risk

and the whole "banning groups for posting CP" is pretty much obviously a smoke screen, what they are after are banning alt.binaries to stop copyright infringement..

Im afraid large corporations have the $ to organise such a campaign , the innocent victims of pedophiles dont have $ and dont vote, therefore there are few politicians who give a rats ass about them- :icon_scra

</rant> /QUOTE]

Now there is some clear-eyed cynicism.

[QUOTE=kippies;551909]
can we have a new rule to ban political debates? :devil2 i far prefer the fart debates

Without objection here...