More ISP's dropping Usenet service

My newsgroup reader displayed this message when I ran it today:

June 16, 2008, 11:15 a.m.

More ISP's to drop newsgroups...

Recently, Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner have announced they will no longer provide full Usenet access to their customers. They are not blocking Usenet access if you pay for a commercial news service. If you aren't using one already, consider signing up for one of our recommended Usenet news services so you can continue using NewsBin. All our recommended services are better than what your ISP was offering anyway.

Fortunately, I don't have any of these ISP's, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more of this in the future, along with metered service.

Do they give a reason for the drop?

ephil wrote:Do they give a reason for the drop?

Nahh, I quoted the entirety of the msg Newsbin automatically sends when started. I'm sure that it all comes down to money. . .or, in more detail:

1. They often pay 3rd-party Newsgroup providers to give their subscribers Usenet access. They probably don't want to put out that money.

2. I doubt more than 5 subscribers in a hundred know what Usenet and Newsgroups are. . .probably fewer make use of them.

3. I imagine a disproportionally large amount of bandwidth is used by those few ppl who know about and use Usenet. Of course, if they do away with the FREE Usenet access, a lot of the more dedicated Usenet users will pay $15 a month, and then they will have access to UNCAPPED Usenet access. Currently, my newsgroups are capped at about 45 KBps. If I paid $15, I could have 10 mbps newsgroups. I don't see the upside in this as far as saving bandwidth. They'd be sorry if I decided to spring for that kind of access. . .up until they booted my bandwidth-hogging ass. 🙂

4. Usenet is responsible for a very large portion of pirated movies, music, and computer programs. The ISP's would probably not be upset to further distance themselves from that. I figure this is a bonus for them, on top of discouraging the bandwidth-hogs and not paying for Usenet access for their members.

This article: http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/06/16/isp-r...eath-of-usenet/

says it's due to the NY Attorney General investigating usenet for carrying child pornography. The ISPs are using it as an opportunity to not only shut down the specific portions that are carrying that crap, but everything or most everything.

Usenet has always been a source of problems. Back when I worked for the Oklahoma based ISP, we had to follow the laws of Oklahoma concerning access to Usenet. Back in 99, we required a signed form along with a faxed copy of the driver's license before we would even allow access.

I had some guy from Phoenix bitch me out about freedom of speech, and his rights, etc. I thought it was funny considering how I feel about it, but I also realized I lived in a bass ackwards state when it came to obscenity laws.

Remember, it was the same community that went after people who rented the Tin Drummer as child pornographers.

Wikipedia wrote:It also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of 1979 at the 1980 Academy Awards.

Atomm you are exactly right though, Usenet has always been a problem. ISPs have been at least censoring it widespread for many many years. The ISP I worked for also censored it. Usenet has very little practical use anymore, and it's a haven for many wrong things.

That said, I think it's sad we don't have any rules for the ISPs to follow. I think congress needs to address some of this... i.e. net neutrality...etc.

While I personally don't care about usenet(since the 80's), I understand why some would.

Hmmm. Makes you wonder how this will play out. I suspect we'll lose Usenet access unless you're willing to pony up for it ala carte, and even then, I wonder if that will be all that happens. I wonder if this will be the beginning of the end of Usenet. As I said earlier, I doubt 5 ppl out of 100 know what it is, so who will care when it's gone?

My guess is that as ISPs drop it's support they will drop it's ports and block them, in which case even ala carte woudln't happen

I would not be shocked if IRC was next... And that would blow...
Fact of the matter is, 'bad things' were here before usenet... 'Bad things' will find other places to go to...

Can't shut everything down? [or can you?]

O I am not disagreeing with you. I was trying to state the perception.

The reality is that torrents will pick up most of the slack for now

The really nasty child porn stuff they are going after is just going to move to different groups. Alt.* will be removed but will spring up under another crop of names/groups. I've read in verizon newgroups today that many of these are already running dups in different named groups.

From what I've read Verizon is just going to remove the offensive alt.* binary groups. Now when I had earthlink, they just used a size limit, thus everything in alt.* were incompletes. Bittorrent is a pain in the ass as far as I'm concerned.

I could care less for program files and especially movies, but I do like the tv shows and series without all the commericals.

For 3 months, perhaps longer, verizon's servers were spilling out incompletes. They had no intention of fixing the problem, so you knew then the time had come. I've been downloading 70% from them, with fills from another provider, but it really kills speed and time.

I think I'll just go for a 10gb $2.95 monthly acct and use another service for fills or when I go over that limit. Its all just a ruse to drop usenet while paying the same. If they truly believed they could kill child porn with this, they'd block usenet on your isp line entirely.

At 768k dsl, I don't get as much as you'd think.

Insult to injury of course is no FIOS for my area. Comcast made sure of that, and verizon just bumped my bill up another 6 bucks a month, probably to pay for the increased cost of oil to transport electrons to the fiber optics network ;p

Today's 'message of the day' thru my newsgroup reader:

Road Runner to Discontinue Usenet Access...

Road Runner and all other Time Warner owned Internet providers are discontinuing Usenet access as of June 23, 2008. One of our recommended Usenet news services, Giganews, is offering a special deal to Time Warner customers to provide Usenet access. They are offering 50% off your first month of their Diamond access plan or 20% off your first month for all other accounts.

So it's not just that they won't provide "full Usenet access" as was stated yesterday, but they won't provide any access at all.

/not surprised

Looks like every ISP is going to jump on this bandwagon, including mine.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080...child-porn.html