Comcast censors e-mails on Downing Street Minutes

[dissent1977]

Most Comcast internet customers seem to have horror stories, but in my humble opinion this one is a doozie and may even suggest threats to freedom of speech more significant than the jailing of a court stenographer.

I'm working on a campaign headquartered at www.afterdowningstreet.org that seeks to draw attention to the Downing Street Minutes and to lobby Congress to open an investigation into whether the President has committed impeachable offenses. According to a recent Zogby poll, 42 percent of Americans favor impeachment proceedings if the President lied about the reasons for war, and according to a recent ABC News / Washington Post poll, 52 percent think he did. But this story is nowhere to be found in the corporate media. So, our website attracts a lot of traffic.

In addition, July 23rd is the three-year anniversary of the meeting on Downing Street that produced the now infamous minutes, and we are organizing events all over the country on that day. Or, we're trying to. But we noticed about a week ago that everyone working on this campaign was having strange Email problems. Some people would get Emails and some wouldn't, or they'd receive some but not others. Conference calls were worse than usual (I can't stand the things anyway) because half the people wouldn’t get the info and know where to call in. Organizing by internet is super easy, but when you have to follow up every Email with a phone call to see if someone got it, it becomes super frustrating. Volunteers have been complaining all over the country – especially now that we've figured out what the problem was and they know what to complain about.

We didn't know it, but for the past week, anyone using Comcast has been unable to receive any Email with "http://afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the Email. That has included every Email from me, since that was in my signature at the bottom of every Email I sent. And it included any Email linking people to any information about the upcoming events.

More: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0716-20.htm

[The Doctor.]

1. And the contact info for Comcast is?

(You should post all the Contact info for every single person who works for comcast... with special attention to the higher-ups. Speaking of whom, it would also be nice to know who those 'higher-ups' are and to what party or parties they might be affiliated.)

peace

[Cassandra]

2. They seem to have solved the problem

although you are welcome to complain anyway. The problem supposedly originated in a Symantec automated spam catcher program.

[Stephanie]

3. Are you paying them?

What is their answer?

[mike_c]

4. that is an amazing story....

I hope ADS has the wherewithal to litigate this one, although I doubt it. This is a case that the ACLU ought to pursue, or perhaps MoveOn or someone similarly monied should support.

on edit-- my point here is that the law should be clarified regarding content based censorship over subscriber lines. Both whether such restrictions are constitutional, but also what responsibilities the provider has for notifying, providing avenues for redress, and so on.

[RoyGBiv]

8. Agreed ...

On the latter part anyway. I suggest everyone actually read the Terms of Service agreement they have with their ISP. This sort of thing is not actionable in most cases. The ISP provides no real guarantees that you'll be able to receive any content at all.

[mike_c]

11. but wouldn't this come under the heading of...

...providing services in good faith under existing first amendment protections? The ISP might not guarantee that any content will be delivered, but that's not the same as actively preventing the delivery of certain content. Doesn't the prejudicial nature of that interfere with the rights of the originators and the receivers who legitimately want to communicate freely?

[RoyGBiv]

14. I'm not real sure ...

The problem (or one of the problems) is that this has not been tested in any meaningful way, which is why I agree this all needs some clarification. (My fear, however, with the current people in power, is that such clarification could go way too far in the wrong direction.) The industry that provides Internet service is so completely unregulated that it can do, at the moment, pretty much anything it wants, constrained only by customer demand. IOW, there's no guarantee you can access any content with a particular ISP's service, but if you can't access what you want, you'll go to another provider that will provide access. Since most cable companies have to compete with DSL (and vice versa) this keeps these companies at least someone honest about what they do.

But then there's the companies behind the companies. Symantec, for example, serves both cable broadband providers and DSL providers, and when they do something, the ISP with whom the customer has contact in most cases doesn't even know it until it gets a complaint, and then it has to go through a convoluted process of determining the source of the issue and getting it corrected. But what if that company refuses to correct anything, and what if the customer has no recourse but to use a company served by this company? In short, they're screwed.

Contrast and compare this with a phone company, which many cable providers are now venturing into as well. Telephone service is still regulated to an extent, and the FCC puts certain requirements on connectivity and the ability of customers to access others. These requirements are very strict, on the order of 99.999% up-time. However, even so, phone service providers can actively block access to particular outlets if they determine and can show that such access is causing or could cause problems for the network's stability or the customers themselves. For example, a phone provider can block access to specific numbers or even entire exchanges in foreign countries if that provider can show that the number or exchange is involved in providing an illegal service. An example of this is the "dialer" scam that involves installing a piece of software on your computer that calls these numbers and causes customers to incur large bills. Of course, this isn't about the customer because regulations do not allow the phone provider to force the customer to pay in cases where a scam of this variety can be proven. The safety valve for the company is being able to block the number(s). But, to address your question, what if a person wants to access that content? Too bad.

Internet service doesn't even have those rules. With current laws, ISPs can block anything they want to block at will.

[mike_c]

16. yes, that's why I suggested that a ruling is needed....

But the courts won't respond unless someone litigates.

[RoyGBiv]

17. I understand your point ...

And, as I said, I agree with it. I would welcome such litigation.

But what I'm afraid of at this point is that the person or group engaging in such litigation is going to serve as a sacrificial lamb of sorts. With current laws, this particular case (or what I know of it) would not be actionable. At most, the ISP itself might be required to refund some service fees.

What's needed is a case where a content provider is not blocked by an ISP but is blocked by its own provider. That addresses free speech more clearly.

[tsuki]

20. And now for a completely random thought. I have that poster hanging

in my office, and everyone that has seen it loves it.

[Mythsaje]

5. I posted on this yesterday...IMPORTANT

They have an automated spam-blocking system and, for some reason, the stuff originating from the afterdowningstreet site keyed the spam blocking response. I have a few theories of why this happened, but it has NOTHING to do with company policy or any kind of crackpot conspiracy.

My guess? A bunch of freepers joined the site to get e-mail from them, then turned the site in for "spamming" them.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Sounds reasonable ...

A political agenda is at work here, but it's not necessarily with the companies involved themselves. Automated software is prone to being abused.

[Mythsaje]

9. As of 8 PM Pacific last night

the HSI (High Speed Internet) department was trying to get the situation fixed, but they didn't really understand what was going on either.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Sounds about right ...

If people really understood the complicated mess involved in how they receive broadband service, they would be (and should be) appalled. In many ways, it all hangs by a very thin thread.

[mike_c]

12. I agree that's likely, but THAT's a conspiracy too...

...and the apparent ease with which it was accomplished shows how ripe for abuse such blind responses are. At the very least, anyone accused of spamming should be notified and be asked for an explanation.

[Mythsaje]

13. Oh, I agree...

It could well have been an exceedingly clever freeper and his pals taking advantage of an automated system.

Or just a glitch.

I'm tending toward the former simply because it seems a little too uncomfortably coincidental that it was afterdowningstreet that got tagged.

I just know it wasn't anything deliberate on the part of Comcast. They're actually a fairly decent organization, as such things go.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Symantec ...

I'd just like to note here that while I am completely sympathetic with the frustration and anger directed at Comcast, the origin of the problem is actually with Symantec. The author of this article doesn't address this properly, imo, suggesting that Symantec works for Comcast and that Comcast could demand they "shape up" or simply drop them.

It's not that simple.

If Comcast is like most major cable providers -- and the fact they do business with Symantec at all suggests they are -- Symantec controls almost every aspect of Comcast's network, everything from its broadband internet service, to billing software, to phone switching, etc. Certainly Comcast has a responsibility to its customers to address this, and quickly, but in my view the bulk of the anger and protest should be directed toward Symantec itself.

The author asserts, "Apparently the folks at Symantec did this, and Comcast condoned it." The latter is not necessarily the case. More likely is that Comcast had absolutely no idea it had happened, and the people that were first contacted at Comcast were low-level employees who read from a script and themselves had absolutely no idea what was going on, much less an ability to fix the problem.

In short, Comcast must be held accountable for this sort of thing, but we should not take our eyes off what is going on behind the scenes in the networked world. You get service from a provider. That provider is in turn served in various capacities by other companies that may have their own agendas or internal organizational problems as well. In all, this seems to me to be more of a case of poor customer service involving a problem that likely began due to a small internal or outside political influence.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Symantec may be the problem

but this does smack of completely inappropriate (and maybe even illegal?) political interference. To decide that all emails are spam if they refer to a genuine, legal website is completely unacceptable. There would have been millions of emails sent out from gop.com and similar during the election, but they weren't marked as spam - and anything linking to gop.com wouldn't be, either.

[globalvillage]

21. Comcast does not use Symantec

for billing or switch provisioning. On what information do you base your conclusion?
I agree with some of what you include in your post, but your assumptions re Comcast's use of Symantec is incorrect. There are three major billers that are used in the broadband industry, and Symantec is not one of them.
I also think Symantec is being accused of a conspiracy that likely does not exist.

Here's their Chairman and CEO, John W Thompson's political donations. Doesn't look like someone who would intentionally obstruct Dem causes.

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?txtName=thompson%2C+john+w&NumOfThou=0&txt2004=Y&submit=Go%21

I think that if there is anything 'shady' going on here, it's not related to either Comcast or Symantec.
Of course, if there is proof...


On edit, the $300 is a different guy.

[RoyGBiv]

22. Billing ...

My apologies. Thanks for the correction. I think at the time I was confusing Symantec and Spectrum or possibly Convergys.

In short, I was guessing based on experiences I have with another company. My basic point remains in that "simply dropping" a company that supports some aspect of the company's infrastruction isn't as easy as it may sound.

And I agree with your conclusion that the something shady is probably not related directly either to Comcast or Symantec.

[globalvillage]

23. Ah, so we agree.

No need for an apology, but thanks. I also concur with your basic premise.

IMO, there is no need to slam the (relatively) blameless when there are so many more deserving.

I did learn a bit researching both companies. No 'deep dive', but I took a look at buyblue, opensecrets and both company websites, as well as a bit of googling. Nothing intrinsically evil in either that I could find.

Wanna talk about Walmart?

[cosmicdot]

15. fwiw ... former Pentagon PR person, Victoria Clarke ...

OKA, the former 'Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs'

...works for Comcast now, according to this link:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/dpbmembers.html

7. Ms. Victoria Clarke Comcast 5/19/2004 6/17/2006

well, actually, 'former' may not adquately describe her situation ... as she's listed as a current member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee which includes, as we know, many notables (Woolsey, Kissinger, Gingrich, Quayle, Perle, et al)


~snip~Among former government officials who now work for the cable industry, the best known is Victoria Clarke, who had nothing to do with the FCC. Clark was the Pentagon spokeswoman during the Iraq war and is widely credited with creating the "embedding" system of attaching reporters to troops in the field. Clarke took a job with Comcast as senior adviser, communications and government affairs.~snip~
http://www.public-i.org/telecom/report.aspx?aid=395&sid=200


PHILADELPHIA, Dec 15, 2003 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) announced today that Victoria (Torie) Clarke will join the company as Senior Advisor for Communications and Government Affairs, effective January 1, 2004. Clarke will help lead Comcast's integrated strategic communications and government affairs efforts including helping to coordinate Comcast's efforts in the communications and government affairs arena with other members of the cable industry. ~snip~
http://www.cmcsk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=147565&p=irol-newsArticle&t=Regular&id=477728&

other "Victoria Clarke joins Comcast" google links
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=victoria+clarke+joins+Comcast


she had come out of the WPP world-wide PR org/corporation, i.e., used to run Hill & Knowlton's DC office, and held such previous jobs as Poppy Bu$h's 1992 re-election press sect'y




```````````````` non-Comcast info ```````````````
this is always a fun chart - follow the money
Corporate Affiliations of Defense Policy Board Members
http://store.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=89&sid=200

[ET Awful]

19. It's more likely the problem arose from a spam filter

blocking mass mailings than an intentional blocking of mail from a particular source as an intentional censoring of content.

What will usually initially cause an automated block of a domain or group of addresses is a huge number of mailings coming through at the same time to a large number of recipients.

It's not unusual.

I've had it happen with my spam filter on my servers at work for very odd domains (one was just a scientific journal that 3 of my users subscribe to). I had to specificly allow that address/domain to send mail in.

What it comes from is an overabundance of caution when blocking spam and virii.