[Infowarrior] - Craigslist is Being Blocked by Cox Interactive?

[Richard Forno]

 Craigslist is Being Blocked by Cox Interactive
>From Silicon Valley Watcher, June 9, 2006
By Tom Foremski
http://www.freepress.net/news/print.php?id=15953

Is this what the loss of net neutrality will bring?

An SVW reader left this tip:

³I use Cox cable internet, Cox¹s media empire printed classifieds is one of
their big revenue drivers. Guess what? If you try to access Craigslist over
Cox Cable internetŠ its nearly impossible! It appears that they throttle
access to craigslist ‹ as a matter of fact there have been a zillion
complaints but hey, who can blame Cox? They¹re trying to stop the opening
cap in their money dam! Maybe you should investigate this tip further.
Cheers.²

I did investigate further, I walked out of my apartment and across Alamo
Square and popped in on Jim Buckmaster, the CEO of Craigslist. Jim was just
getting back from work and I spoke with Susan Best, publicist for
Craigslist. Susan said they have known about the problem with Cox.

Jim soon arrived and said the problem of access had been going on since late
February. It had something to do with the security software that Cox isusing
from a company called Authentium.

Cox has been collaborating with Authentium since April 2005 to develop the
security software suite.

Back on February 23rd Authentium acknowledged that their software is
blocking Craigslist but it still hasn¹t fixed the problem, more than three
months later. That¹s a heck of long time to delete some text from their
blacklist. And this company also supplies security software to other large
ISPs.

Craigslist has approached Authentium several times to get it to stop
blocking access by Cox internet users but it has been unresponsive. Jim
wasn¹t aware that Cox had its own classified ads service. ³That changes
things, ² he said.

This situation does not look good in the context of the net neutrality
debate. This is exactly the kind of scenario that many people are concerned
about, that the cable companies and the telcos will make it difficult for
their internet users to access competing services.

Here are Craigslists¹ system reports: If you scroll down you can see the Cox
problem, and there are quite a few problems with others too: email with SBC,
and also with Yahoo and BT Internet. Are those problems also related to the
telcos using software that discriminates against Craigslist?

Some more related links:
>From Newspapers and Technology: Cox papers adding interactive features to
classifieds Sept 2005

Take a look at this story about Cox refusing to run AP video. Is it fighting
for open standards are is it fighting off a competitor with a poor revenue
split?
>From Mark Glaser¹s MediaShift: Cox Newspapers Says No to AP Video

Are the telcos funding an online campaign against net neutrality? Take a
look at this recent post from Mark Glaser¹s MediaShift: Bloggers Must Be
Vigilant Against Astroturf Comments

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