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A NY Times article reports that Steve Marshall does not understand “how Web sites owned by a British national operating via a Spanish travel agency can be affected by U.S. law.” Worse, he said, “these days not even a judge is required for the U.S. government to censor online materials …” Steve Marshall lives in Spain, and operates a travel agency which serves a European clientele and books vacation trips to locations including Cuba.

In October, about 80 of his Web sites stopped working, thanks to the United States government. …

It turned out, though, that Mr. Marshall’s Web sites had been put on a Treasury Department blacklist and, as a consequence, his American domain name registrar, eNom Inc., had disabled them …

In effect, Mr. Marshall said, eNom has taken his property and interfered with his business. He has slowly rebuilt his Web business over the last several months, and now many of the same sites operate with the suffix .net rather than .com, through a European registrar. His servers, he said, have been in the Bahamas all along.

Mr. Marshall said he did not understand “how Web sites owned by a British national operating via a Spanish travel agency can be affected by U.S. law.” Worse, he said, “these days not even a judge is required for the U.S. government to censor online materials …

Jump to full New York Times article.

Overrides Internet Searches With Its Own Results

by Martin H. Bosworth, November 3, 2007

Subscribers to Verizon’s high-powered fiber-optic Internet service (FiOS) are reporting that when they mistype a Web site address, they get redirected to Verizon’s own search engine page — even if they don’t have Verizon’s search page set as their default.

“It was the very first thing I noticed when Verizon finally got FiOS installed here the other day. Very annoying and hardly in the spirit of net neutrality, eh?,” wrote one Webmaster World user, who originally had Google set as his default search engine.

Technology forums such as Broadband Reports and WebMasterWorld are reporting that Verizon has now extended its “Advanced Web Search” feature to FiOS subscribers in Maryland and Virginia as well.

If you don’t want to have your search results interfered with, Verizon has set up an “opt out” procedure to reset your DNS settings. Make sure to follow the directions carefully and run several test searches with mistyped addresses to make sure you get the right–or wrong, in this case–result.

In order to redirect the user to the search sites, the user’s Domain Name Service (DNS) settings are altered, which can interfere with previously set network security and safe Internet browsing features.

It also raises the question of whether or not an Internet provider that automatically redirects a user’s searches without telling them will also shape the results they do get, such as filtering their searches to get specific results.

Preferential results from Internet providers is a prime concern for supporters of “net neutrality,” the principle that all content on the Internet should be accessesd freely and equally. Supporters of net neutrality believe that Internet providers may redirect users from their preferred Web pages or content to content the provider favors–such as redirecting a user from Google’s search page to Verizon’s.

Although Verizon opposes net neutrality, it has also said repeatedly that it would not block content or favor its own offerings over rivals–although it now appears to be doing just that.

The telecom giant recently got into hot water over its blocking of text messages from abortion rights group NARAL, leading to a quick reversal.

Jump to full Consumer Affairs article

Internet Radio in Danger

A ruling by an obscure regulatory agency threatens to silence Internet radio. After intense lobbying from the recording industry, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) is about to mandate exponential increases — by as much as 1,200 percent — in royalties paid every time webcasters stream a song online.

If these unfair rules are allowed to go into effect on July 15, many public, independent and smaller Internet radio stations will have to shut down. At stake is the diversity of musical choice that the Internet has come to represent for more than 50 million listeners.

Congress must stop this bad rule and replace it with a system that both pays artists and fosters more diverse Internet radio programming. We must rapidly mobilize support for new legislation that will rescue Internet radio before it’s too late.

Act Now! Urge Congress to support the Internet Radio Equality Act.