The University of Toronto’s important Open Net Initiative has just released a must-read report on the Telus blockage. While the focus of commentary last week was naturally on the lack of accessibility for the Voices for Change website, the report discovered that there were additional 766 websites that shared the same IP address and thus were also caught by the Telus action. The report notes that "these sites included an engineering company; a breast cancer fundraising site; an alternative medicine site based in Australia; and a Colorado based electronic recycling company." As I argued earlier this week, the ramifications from the Telus action will be felt for a long time to come.
Collateral Damage
8 Comments
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 231: Sara Bannerman on How Canadian Political Parties Maximize Voter Data Collection and Minimize Privacy Safeguards 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 230: Aengus Bridgman on the 2025 Federal Election, Social Media Platforms, and Misinformation 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 229: My Digital Access Day Keynote – Assessing the Canadian Digital Policy Record 
Queen’s University Trustees Reject Divestment Efforts Emphasizing the Importance of Institutional Neutrality 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 228: Kumanan Wilson on Why Canadian Health Data Requires Stronger Privacy Protection in the Trump Era
innocent bystander’s sufferring because thier site was not accessible to certain people. scary
So how many of these stunts before they loose their common carrier status?
So 766 web sites shared the same IP address? And how many visitors per day did all of these sites average? 1? 0? Come on, this is a non-story if there ever was one. You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Truly nothing.
To use a “breast cancer fundraising site” as an example, as if to accuse Telus of impeding important breast cancer research, is a phony argument. A breast cancer site that doesn’t get any visitors and doesn’t raise any money should be disqualified from being used. Pick a site that was actually affected.
So a few people were stopped from seeing a few web sites for a few days. Who really was affected by this? No one. Moving on, nothing to see here.
The breast cancer site advertises “our upcoming event April 30th”. So, they can’t really claim to be affected.
Scott,
If you had bother to RTFA that Michael linked you would know that the sites were all hosted by the same server and it was that server that was blocked. A single server can easily handle millions of visitors a day so I don’t see how you can relate 766 web sites to 0-1 visitors per day.
I’m not even going to attempt to respond to that crap you wrote about the breast cancer fundraising site. Before writing future comments you may first want to consider pulling your head from your ass. Thanks.
David,
Thanks for your insightful response. You have really added some quality arguments to this debate.
I have read the article. I have actually visited the out of date sites. I still don’t see the big deal.
And, you have still not proven to me that any of the sites affected were regularly or heavily visited. If a tree falls in a forest, and noone is around to hear it… yadda yadda yadda.
I run several sites myself. I used to use Bell as my ISP, and when I switched to another ISP, Bell did not update their internal DNS servers for MONTHS. Anyone using Bell Sympatico as their ISP and typing my URL would be redirected to the old IP. For MONTHS.
So, again, some insignificant sites were inaccessible to a tiny number of users for a couple of days… Zzzzz… Big freaking deal.
Scott
No common carrier status.
Dan — they can do this as often as they want, and they will never lose their common carrier status. The CRTC doesn’t regulate the Internet, remember? If you disagree with the rules, deadline for comments to the Telecom Policy Review Panel (telecomreview.ca) is August 15.
Legal Action
I wonder if the other sites affected have considered legal action. Their sites were also blocked by the action.