PacBell and Scientology knock Kevin Burton offline

Cory Doctorow 11:38 pm Wed Feb 5, 2003

Kevin Burton's mirror of xenu.net's samizdata about the Church of Scientology generated a DMCA takedown notice — a legal notice that requires his ISP to remove the material and then ask him if he disputes that it is infringing, and if he does, to put it back up. PacBell sent Kevin email to a dead account and then disconnected his $180/month "business" DSL account. To add insult to injury, PacBell (Kevin's ISP) had no mechanism for reinstating his account and gave him days of runaround.

SBC has handled this in a completely unacceptable manner. No warning notice was provided. They did send an email to _REMOVED_@pacbell.net however this is an account that is not used (honestly how many people use their DSL provided email anyway). In fact I honestly had no idea that it existed until their Policy department informed of this. They have my cell phone, my land line, and my physical address in San Francisco yet they choose to use *none* of these to warn me prior to disconnecting my service.

Up until this point I have been a loyal SBC customer for greater than 2 years. I purchase their business grade account at $180 a month for 5 IPs, 384 up, and 6Mb down with an Acceptable Use Policy that allows for running servers (web, email, etc).

(Thanks, Kevin!)

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