UTV Blocks Ebid.ie

Dustaz · 02-12-2002 7:25pm #1

UTVi's position is, to put it kindly, flimsy, arguing in effect that censorship is acceptable in the support of commercial aims. And if no-one's watching, no-one cares.

I find this worrying in the extreme.

Can they do this legally?

Mountjoy Mugger · 02-12-2002 7:29pm

Dunno about doing it legally, Dustaz.

I must admit I'm disappointed to see such petty behaviour though. I hope they don't continue in this shoddy manner.

Mr. Fancypants · 02-12-2002 7:39pm

Was an excellent article in the Sunday Tribune about it. In the Ethos column. Well worth a read.

eth0_ · 02-12-2002 7:40pm

Maybe blocking access to their site was a way of getting the beleagured ebid.ie to pay hosting bills?

Who cares anyway, ebid.ie is a pile of ****, the auctions are full of spammers, I don't know anyone who would use their service.

dahamsta · 02-12-2002 7:41pm

I'd say if you had the time, the money and the energy, you'd have a fair chance of winning a constitutional case against them. Possibly. Maybe. The curiosity is killing me though. "Commercial dispute"? What the hell could it be about?

Here's a question for you: If you were the UTV sysop and you were asked to do this, what would you do?

adam

dahamsta · 02-12-2002 7:43pm

Not the point eth0_. Not the point at all.

adam

eth0_ · 02-12-2002 7:54pm

Originally posted by dahamsta
Not the point eth0_. Not the point at all.

adam

Of couse it's the point. If you were UTV and were owed a lot of money from hosting fees, and you weren't being paid, what would you do? Yes it's petty but maybe they couldn't get any satisfaction from Ebid any other way.

As for what would I do if i was a sysop for UTV....i'd do what my boss asked me to do, tbh.

BuffyBot · 02-12-2002 8:06pm

I know other ISP's reserve the right to remove content or access to content at their descretion, I have a feeling that UTV may too - perhaps a read of thier Terms and Conditions of service would enlighten someone.

dahamsta · 02-12-2002 8:34pm

That's not what I was saying eth0, I was saying that the quality of ebid.ie's site and service has nothing to do with it. I still think you're wrong though. For a start, ebid.ie isn't even hosted in Ireland, never mind with UTV/Nevada. And for seconds, there's a big difference between removing someone's account because of non-payment, and blocking. One is business, the other is censorship.

adam

Dustaz · 02-12-2002 9:30pm

Adam is correct.

This is nothing to do with not paying hosting fees. As far as i can see, its plain old fashioned censorship. Eth0, imagine if Eircom decided that they had some sort of argument with Ioffl and blocked access to the webpage and the forums (there goes 50% of boards posters).

Bard · 02-12-2002 10:22pm

I wonder how successful E-Bay would be if they were to take a case against E-Bid for taking the "ebay.ie" domain...

E-Bay's Irish site is at ebayireland.com as a result.

Presumably E-Bid would have had to set up a trading name of "E-Bay (Ireland)" to get it.

sceptre · 02-12-2002 10:26pm

Originally posted by Bard
Presumably E-Bid would have had to set up a trading name of "E-Bay (Ireland)" to get it.

Yup, that's exactly how they got it.

No-one has any info (inside or otherwise) on what the dispute is?

daveg · 02-12-2002 10:38pm

I'm using my UTV connection and I can get to ebid.ie

If it is true then thats crap. Why should we have accessed blocked because of a disptue between ebid and UTV.

The Cigarette Smoking Man · 02-12-2002 10:45pm

Originally posted by dahamsta
Here's a question for you: If you were the UTV sysop and you were asked to do this, what would you do?

I think you'd do what your boss tells you or else you'd get your walking papers.

That aside, pathetic behaviour from UTV management.

bricks · 02-12-2002 11:08pm

Wouldn't it be appropriate to take the website offline i.e. block everyone? Then it would just be a simple removel of service for non-payment.
I'm betting that Martin is not allowed to comment on this:)

dahamsta · 03-12-2002 10:20am

I'm using my UTV connection and I can get to ebid.ie

Read the article daveg, they unblocked it last Friday.

I think you'd do what your boss tells you or else you'd get your walking papers.

Unfair dismissal. I guess I can't really say what I'd do unless it actually happened to me, but I rather like to think that I'd walk meself.

The really sad thing is that this must have needed to go through several layers of authority to the person who threw the switch. I mean, what kind of CTO allows this kind of crap?

adam

eth0_ · 03-12-2002 10:24am

Originally posted by dahamsta
[

Unfair dismissal. I guess I can't really say what I'd do unless it actually happened to me, but I rather like to think that I'd walk meself.
adam

How? Refusing to do what your job requires could be seen as gross insubordination. Which is a sackable offence.

Dr99 · 03-12-2002 12:13pm

How? Refusing to do what your job requires could be seen as gross insubordination. Which is a sackable offence.

Not if your job requires you to do something illegal!
If my boss told me to do somthing Illegal I'd tell him to take a hike. (Oh wait hang on, I work for MS... ah please ignore that last sentance

)

Tippex · 03-12-2002 1:13pm

Guys,

One thing that no one has touched on is the users that this has affected.

Legally would any dialup cutomers be in a position to claim that they did not receive the service for which they have paid and are therefore requesting a rebate for the time of outage?

Tip.

The Cigarette Smoking Man · 03-12-2002 1:14pm

I don't think blocking a website is illegal. It's certainly immoral anyway..

eth0_ · 03-12-2002 1:17pm

I'm sure their asses are covered over this, have a look at their terms and conditions

UTV Blocks Ebid.ie

Comments