VERIZON BEGINS SCANNING AND CENSORING CUSTOMER EMAILS

VERIZON BEGINS SCANNING AND CENSORING CUSTOMER EMAILS

Telecom giant known for trying to block news on the internet

A news radio station in New York reports that the broadband and telecommunications company Verizon is now scanning customer email.

If email contains a hyperlink to a website, the email is rejected and not sent to the recipient, according to 95.1 FM in New York City.

After a customer complained about the policy the corporation told him there isn’t a way to op-put of the program.

“Verizon scans the digital signatures of all inbound and outbound email messages to reduce the overall volume of spam on our network” and all email containing a hyperlink will be considered spam.

“So if a business person needs to get information to a colleague, or a student needs to get research to a fellow student, or if a wife wants to share an interesting recipe with a friend . . .  all those emails will be rejected by Verizon!” the radio station website explains.

In October Matt Drudge told the Alex Jones Showthe very foundation of the free internet is under severe threat from copyright laws that could ban independent media outlets. Drudge said he was told directly by a Supreme Court Justice, “It’s over for me.”

The move by Verizon follows a previous effort by the broadband giant to dictate news on the internet.

In a 2012 legal brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Verizon argued the Constitution gives the phone company the right to control everyone’s online information.

“Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others.”

In other words, Verizon believes it has “editorial discretion” over what news and information its customers may access.

The following year the company went before the appeals court and said it has the right to block content that cannot or will not pay a toll.

In 2007 Verizon Wireless blocked text messages it deemed “controversial or unsavory.”

“This is right at the heart of the problem,” said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at theUniversity of Michigan law school, told The New York Times. “The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling.”

Additionally, Verizon works with the NSA to monitor and collect the metadata of tens of millions of phone users.