[Reader-list] Proposal for Blocking Yahoo and Hotmail by Indian ISPs

[zamrooda]

Proposal for Blocking Yahoo and Hotmail by Indian ISPs

(http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial/edit_10jul_28_1.html)


Yesterday's brief comment on the proposal mooted by some ISP is in India to 
block popular sites such as Yahoo and Hotmail has evoked wide spread 
comments. Most of the respondents have found it hard to believe such a 
proposal could be existing because they see no valid reason for the same.

Frankly, I also see no valid reason for such a move which is an anti customer 
move and could be a PR disaster. It could also attract consumer action and 
threaten the ISP license itself without necessarily being a wise move 
commercially. 

In order to remove the doubts about the origin of the news report, I give more 
details of the proposal and how it seems to have originated.

The news item was picked from the Hindustan Times Net Edition of July 27, 
2002, where an article by Mr Soumendra Sahu reported the proceedings of the 
executive committee meeting of ISAPI (Internet Service Providers Association 
of India). It was stated that the proposal was mooted by a Rajastan based ISP 
by name Data Infosys and is supported by Satyam and Data Access. Caltiger and 
Net4India appear to have opposed the move while MTNL and VSNL have at present 
not taken a view. The secretary of the ISP is however quoted as saying that 
"The association will resolve the issue through mutual discussion before 
going ahead with the blocking".

The reason quoted by ISAPI is that portals like Yahoo, Hotmail and E-Bay are 
accessed through the services of the ISP s and should therefore contribute 
part of their earnings to the ISPs. In order to make this possible, ISP s 
should first stop access to these services. 

Comments:

The proposal of ISAPI to demand money from the portals which are visited by 
their customers is down right silly. It is hard to believe that a Company 
like Satyam who runs its own portal should ever be even considering such a 
move. The officer of Satyam who has attended the meeting and let this view 
pass has done a great disservice to the image of Satyam both from the point 
of view of exhibiting lack of sensitivity to consumer's views as well as the 
self defeating nature of the proposal itself.

Self Defeating Nature of the Proposal:

Imagine VSNL and Dishnet stating that Sify should pay a part of the portal's 
ad revenue  to them since a part of the visitors come through VSNL and 
Dishnet access accounts. If Satyam can expect revenue from Yahoo and Hotmail, 
there is no reason why VSNL and Dishnet cannot expect a similar revenue from 
Satyam. 

Secondly, if some customers of an ISP are visiting a popular website 
repeatedly, the time they spend there is directly bringing benefit to the 
ISP. Like the proverbial dog Vs Tail, who wags whom, ISP s seem to be 
thinking that it is because of them that Content providers exist on the 
Internet. It is essential for them to first understand the medium of Internet 
and appreciate that it is the attractive content or service that makes people 
access Internet and provides bread and butter to ISPs. If a client goes to 
Yahoo and plays a game of Chess for 30 minutes, the ISP which has provided 
the access gets a direct benefit of the usage of access hours. It simply 
defies my logic that the ISP s are unable to understand this simple truth. 

If this argument has any value, then there can also be a demand from the ISP s 
that sites which post heavy files such as "Images" have to pay more than 
sites that post text data.

If however, ISP s feel that the charges they are now levying for bandwidth 
usage is not sufficient, it is for them to increase their service charges or 
change over the pattern of charging from "Hours of Usage" to "Bandwidth 
Used". Trying to discriminate the users based on the sites they visit is 
foolish to say the least.

ISP s should however remember that today they are making fraudulent gain by 
various means including "Choking the bandwidth deliberately so as to increase 
the hours of usage". For example, if an ISP offers 33.6 KB or 64 KB 
bandwidth, they actually shrink the bandwidth available to the consumer by 
sharing the pipe with too many customers. The actual data transfer speed on 
an average  is perhaps  less than 50 %.  More over, the uptime of most of the 
Indian ISP s is below acceptable international standards and the consumers 
pay for frequent disconnections or malfunctioning of the servers at the ISP 
end.

ISP s are also indulging in many anti consumer activities such as "Eating 
E-Mails" of the customers and if Consumers have not so far brought legal 
action on the ISPs for these sub optimal services that they are rendering, it  
is only because the Consumer organizations in India are not focusing on the 
requirements of Netizens and informed consumers also understand the technical 
problems in an emerging high tech service.

If ISP s think that the Consumers can be taken for a ride and charged for the 
inefficiencies of the ISPs, the faults of the telephone systems and also for 
visiting sites of their choice, they are taking on the Net Community is a 
losing battle and will invite the wrath of the community.

Licensing Terms:

I am not able to comment on the ISP licensing terms at this point of time and 
leave it to some of the other experts. One view of the industry is that the 
ISP has the discretion to determine what service he provides and he cannot be 
compelled to allow access to any website.

In the past, ISP s have fought for their right to allow access to any website 
against objections of regulatory agencies. There are some ISPs who have 
refused to block anti Indian sites when demanded by the regulatory 
authorities taking refuge under "Freedom to Information Access". Similarly, 
many ISP s are not willing to block porno sites stating various technical 
reasons. When they seem to oppose regulation of their activities in these 
cases which is in public interest, it is strange that they now want to 
regulate the content that the customer can view, for commercial 
considerations.

Without further detailed analysis of the ISP guidelines, I can only say that 
if the regulatory authorities think that ISP's action of blocking Yahoo or 
Hotmail are arbitrary restrictions placed on the fair use of the medium, they 
should have the right to cancel the license.  

Such powers will anyway be available to the regulators under the next piece of 
legislation that is likely to become a law soon.

Implications of ITA-2000

By trying to exercise their right to regulate what the users of ISP can view, 
ISP s are also admitting that they will be technically capable of blocking 
certain sites at their pleasure. This will remove the defense they so far had 
to oppose regulator's instructions for "Interception" of communication or 
blocking of websites.

ITA-2000 had provided  section 79 to keep the ISP s free from  liabilities for 
the content that passes through them by creating a separate status as an 
"Intermediary" of a communication message. It was under this status that they 
could absolve themselves of any liability for the content accessed by the 
users.

If ISP s now express their desire to take control of the content, they will 
also be expressing their willingness to be held accountable for the content. 
If then, any ISP receives a notice about either a porno site or a terrorist 
site and they do not block them, they can be charged for Distribution of 
Obscene electronic documents, Abetment in Terrorist activities etc and can be 
punished under IPC, ITA-2000 as well as POTA.

I wish the ISP s think carefully before shedding the protecting veil of "The 
status of a Neutral Data Carriage Intermediary" and assuming the role of 
"Selective Content Distribution Service".  The responsibilities cast on them 
in such changed role are far too many for them to digest.

As a PR Exercise, companies like Satyam will do well  to clarify if they are 
advocating this change. Their silence will be construed as endorsing the 
position that they consider themselves not as "Intermediary" under Section 79 
and Section 2 of ITA-2000 but as a "Content Distributor To a Closed list of 
Members". This may be used against them in any legal action  where they 
express inability to block objectionable content.

Naavi

 July 28,  2002