The Nuremberg Files quickly reappeared, however, under the domain of Plebeian Systems, a small Cincinnati ISP. Nevertheless, a few weeks later, the site was shut down again, but not because Plebeian Systems took issue with the site. Instead, the T-1 provider to Plebeian systems, OneNet Communications, threatened to cut off Internet access to the smaller company if it did not remove the site. An employee of Plebeian was quoted as saying, “Our upstream provider forced us to take it down. They were getting too much heat and email. It kind of sounds like they were blackmailed into it.” Interestingly enough, however, OneNet’s usage policy doesn’t state anything about threats specifically, and contains an indemnification policy which frees it from liability for content placed on its system. Nevertheless, OneNet asserts that “the language is part of OneNet’s agreement with its T-1 clients.” In an ominous follow-up report, OneNet systems wrote the following message to Plebeian systems explaining its decision:
“It is only a matter of time until we get pressure from above regarding you--they have done it many times in the past with spammers and pornographers that were downstream from us...None of those businesses are around today. These people will go after each link of the chain until one of the links break.”
The identity of those “from above” is unclear, but makes it appear that OneNet can pick and choose to whom it resells Internet access based on the content they host. This situation seems to be a chilling and possibly unprecedented case of a large or top-tier ISP filtering content not directly controlled or even related to its operation. Without any sort of regulation or recourse, it seems that cases like this could only increase with time.
