Comcasting call

So I know I promised more on Chinese internet filtering today, but in light of my quick dismissal of the likelihood of it happening in the U.S. and this article coming to my attention, I decided to post on internet filtering in the U.S. instead.

So the crux of the article is that the people running the www.afterdowningstreet.com (ADS) website were having their e-mails blocked because of a spam-filter turning away e-mails that contained the text “www.afterdownstreet.com” in the body of the e-mail (seems they were caught in a content-filter). This posed a problem as the co-founder (and organizer) of the ADS website had the address in the signature line of all of his e-mails. The result was that none of them were sent through to Comcast internet users. Why? Because apparently somebody had sent 46,000 complaints about the e-mails.

Now, this is highly concerning, as many cable, and therefore high-speed internet, providers have a monopoly on the region that they operate in (Comcast has Washington D.C. for instance). So, if Comcast wanted to filter e-mails from a certain source, nobody using Comcast in the Washington, D.C. area could receive these e-mails. Troubling, especially if all of the major providers were on the same page about this issue. Then, it would be very difficult to send the same e-mail to a majority of the country.

So I decided to look into Comcast’s policy about this issue, and came across their Acceptable Use Policy (which is less entertaining to read than it sounds), apparently an accepted industry practice. Some key phrases:

PROHIBITED USES AND ACTIVITIES
Prohibited uses include, but are not limited to, using the Service, Customer Equipment, or the Comcast Equipment to:
transmit unsolicited bulk or commercial messages or "spam." This includes, but is not limited to, unsolicited advertising, promotional materials or other solicitation material, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, chain mail, informational announcements, charity requests, and petitions for signatures;

INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT AND TRANSMISSIONS
Comcast reserves the right, but not the obligation, to refuse to transmit or post and to remove or block any information or materials, in whole or in part, that it, in its sole discretion, deems to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise inappropriate, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful. Neither Comcast nor any of its affiliates, suppliers, or agents have any obligation to monitor transmissions or postings (including, but not limited to, e-mail, newsgroup, and instant message transmissions as well as materials available on the Personal Web Pages and Online Storage features) made on the Service. However, Comcast and its affiliates, suppliers, and agents have the right to monitor these transmissions and postings from time to time for violations of this Policy and to disclose, block, or remove them in accordance with the Subscriber Agreement and any other applicable agreements and policies.

ELECTRONIC MAIL
The Service may not be used to send unsolicited bulk or commercial messages and may not be used to collect responses from unsolicited e-mail sent from accounts on other Internet hosts or e-mail services that violate this Policy or the acceptable use policy of any other Internet service provider. Moreover, unsolicited e-mail may not direct the recipient to any Web site or other resource that uses the Service. Activities that have the effect of facilitating unsolicited commercial e-mail or unsolicited bulk e-mail, whether or not the e-mail is commercial in nature, are prohibited

So it seems that Comcast has a pretty innocuous user policy agreement, but one that apparently can be manipulated for politcal fighting. These policies are laid, of course, to combat spam, which is what happened to the ADS people. While I do not really believe that comcast went out of its way to ban this particular groups e-mails from getting through, I do believe that they have a vulnerability in their system that can be manipulated for questionable purposes. After all, couldn’t a person simply complain 46,000 times about a RNC e-mail coming to them?

Seems that the fight against spam has overlapped into the arena of free spreech. How can we help solve Comcast’s problem for them so that this doesn’t happen again in the future?

Update: Not a very important one, but one within context. Of visitors to my page, 27% of them are on Comcast. So over 1/4 of my users would have had the ADS e-mail blocked from them.