Three major internet service providers have all agreed to block customer access to newsgroups, according to the agreement that was announced yesterday by the New York attorney general’s office.
Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner Cable have agreed to dismantle usenet access to their users, either partially or entirely. Details on what each company will end up censoring in total has still yet to be announced.
Time Warner Cable has been the only company to go on the record currently to state that it will be shutting down ALL Newsgroups it controls on its network. Time Warner Cable has already been in the news recently as it announced a tentative release of a new rate plan which would charge users who went over a set download limit per month.
Sprint and Verizon have yet to state anything other than they would “limit access” to newsgroups on their networks to their customers. Verizon has also been a very big proponent of limiting general download usage of customers, as Sprint has been rumored to be in the works of creating a similar rate plan as Time Warner Cable has announced.
The incentive for these companies appear to be noble on the cover. However, with information regarding concerns on the usage of their networks many are speculating that this is drawn from an agenda to reduce traffic on there networks in order to gain higher returns. One of the top arguments is that the proposed incentive is to shut down thousands of legitimate newsgroups that are irrelevant in this case rather than just a few offending groups that would be questionable.
At Newsdemon, we hold open arms to all the refugees of these networks that are being left out in the cold by these ISPs. As an incentive, we’re offing 15% off all of our monthly rate plans for a limited time only for customers from Time Warner, Verizon and Sprint.
Simply use the discount coupon twarner15 on our join page to receive a discount for the life on your account.