Canadian telco Telus recently blocked access to the Telecommunications Workers Union web site "Voices for Change." Unionized workers are currently picketing Telus after rejecting the corporation's contract offer. Customers of the Telus ISP were subequently prevented from accessing the union's site. In a bulletin posted Saturday, July 23, the union claimed that "TELUS has since admitted to blocking this site, although support was still denying the blocking after the fact." It appears that Telus is playing dirty pool in placing its own interests above those of its customers, but that's what we get for allowing corporations to control public communication.

Here's what cybersavvy Stephen Downes had to say about it: "If we are not willing to require that corporations respect basic rights and freedoms, and to enforce this in law, then we should not be placing essential services into their hands." McLuhanite Mark Federman points out that "...ISPs have vigorously argued in the courts that they are but common carriers, not responsible for the content of their users...But they do not have the power to unilaterally censor materials of their own accord. That's vigilanteism, and it's not legal." Legal beagle Michael Geist says "To block a specific website that leaves the company uncomfortable is more than just bad policy as well as completely ineffective. It is dangerous."