http://www.wanttoknow.info:80/070407aolcensorshipemaillists
Dear friends,

AOL is now engaging in blatant censorship by blocking all emails which include the term "want to know (dot) info" (without the spaces). If you add a www. in front of the above term and don't use spaces, it is the Internet address of a popular website which exposes major corruption and calls us to work together to strengthen democracy. As the manager of this website, I am avoiding using the website address directly here so that this message can get through to those who use AOL as their email service provider.

To verify that this email blocking is indeed happening, simply send an email to any friend who uses AOL for their email service and type the above term anywhere in the message without the spaces. Don't forget to include the ".info" immediately after the term. You will find that the email bounces back to you.

As a result this, all of the almost 300 subscribers to our email list who use aol.com can no longer receive our information-packed newsletters. After checking with a number of our AOL subscribers, we have determined that the ban went into effect shortly after we sent an email to our over 3,000 subscribers on March 24th revealing a major banking cover-up.

As you know, our website (which I can't mention throughout this email) specializes in providing reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups of which few are aware. Apparently, someone at AOL does not like this. What gives any company the right to censor emails based on legitimate content, especially when the intention of that content is to strengthen democracy by revealing major corruption and encouraging us all to join in building a brighter future?

For those who have not received our recent emails, you can go to the home page of our website and look in the blue column on the left. Scroll down to the section titled "Information Centers." The first link there titled "Email List Messages" provides links to all of our previous emails with the most recent ones listed first.

I invite you to join in a mass email campaign informing people of this infringement on our rights. Encourage all AOL users to switch to other email and Internet service providers. Please forward this message widely, especially to AOL subscribers. Encourage you friends who use AOL to switch to a free Internet email service like gmail.com, fastmail.fm, yahoo.com, or hotmail.com. Together, we can put a stop to this censorship of vital information.

Thanks for caring and for making a difference in our world. I have no doubt that by working together, we can and will build a brighter future for all of us.

With best wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS and the website which can't be mentioned.
Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton

P.S. If you are an AOL user who subscribes to our list, you must go to the subscribe page on our website, type in your AOL email address and select the unsubscribe button. Then type in a non-AOL email address and select the subscribe button. If you do not do this, you will not likely be able to receive any further emails from us.


Final Note: Please take some time to explore the website which can't be named to see the abundance of highly empowering information presented which calls us all to work together for a better world.

AOL Censorship of WantToKnow.info: Update

Below are the email exchanges I have had with AOL about the block placed on emails which mentioned WantToKnow.info listed in sequential order. As it stands now, the representative who originally told me to "rest assured" that this was caused by a complaint has bowed out and referred me to the AOL legal department. I've sent them a message, but have yet to receive a reply. Email addresses have been removed to protect privacy.





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Sent: Monday, April 9, 2007 5:20 PM
Subject: Re: AOL Operations Ticket 1380785 created

Dear AOL Postmaster,

Thanks for your email. Anthony in your support center was very helpful in dealing with our problem today when I called him at 4 PM. I just wanted to add a few comments in order to help resolve our issue.

I am the executive director of a small nonprofit named PEERS (http://www.peerservice.org), which manages several websites and email lists. We have over 4,000 subscribers to our email lists. The subscription process for all of our email lists is double opt-in, so that after subscribing, each new subscriber is sent an email and must confirm that they indeed want to subscribe before they are added to our subscriber database. This is to avoid any unintentional or unwanted subscriptions, and to avoid any accusations of spam. We also have instructions on how to unsubscribe from the list at both the top and bottom of every email we send out.

Approximately 10% or 400 of our 4,000 subscribers use AOL for their email service. We send out emails to our main email list every four days on average. We never send out any emails to those who are not subscribed and never engage in any activity which would be considered spam.

A short while ago, we discovered that our subscribers who used AOL for their email service stopped receiving our emails. After contacting about a dozen of these subscribers, all agreed that the last email they received from us was on 3/24/07. None of them received the next email we sent on 3/28/07, nor have they received any of the emails we have sent since. Thus it appears this problem began sometime between 3/24 and 3/28.

After running a variety of tests with a number of our subscribers who use AOL, we discovered that though they, as AOL users, could send out email with the URL of one of our websites - WantToKnow.info - mentioned in the email, anyone who was not an AOL user who tried to send an email to an AOL user which included the term "WantToKnow.info" anywhere in the message found that their email was blocked and returned with a 554 error message. So it appears for some reason that a block or filter has been placed on the term WantToKnow.info for emails from non-AOL users to AOL users.

I understand that if several AOL users were to make a complaint about our website, it might be blocked. I would like to recommend that before a block is placed on any website like this, you contact the website first to see if there might be a legitimate reason or resolution to the problem being mentioned by AOL users who have made a complaint. Otherwise, it appears that you are censoring that website.

I cannot imagine any reason any AOL users would complain about our work other than political, as our website does deal with political issues. We've received many emails of support from our AOL users for our work, so the vast majority very much support us. If they don't like our work, it is very easy to unsubscribe, as mentioned above. Because of what happened, I have to wonder if we are either being censored by AOL for our political work, or if a group of people who do not like our work have staged a complaint campaign with AOL to get us black listed. You could avoid accusations of censorship by communicating with any website before blocking it.

After calling your support desk today, Anthony checked your system and could find no block of the WantToKnow.info URL. Yet we've had confirmation from over 40 people who are not AOL users that all emails they send to AOL users which mention WantToKnow.info in the text are returned unsent with a 554 error message. We would very much appreciate your help in resolving this matter and letting us know what we might do to avoid this problem in the future. Thanks much for you help, and please let us know if you need any further information.

With best wishes,
Fred Burks
Executive Director of PEERS (http://www.peerservice.org)





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Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 8:55 AM
Subject: 554 Transaction Failed HVU:B1 RT#1380785

Hello,

I am contacting you regarding the ticket you opened with AOL concerning a mail delivery issue. As I understand, you are receiving 554 HVU:B1 bounce messages when trying to email AOL members. In order to assist in resolving your delivery issue, I will need to see an exact copy of the email receiving the HVU:B1 bounce. Please send the email to [deleted]. Additionally, please include the ticket number when responding. As soon as I am able to find the offending URL, I will immediately get back to you.

Thank you,
Jon
AOL Postmaster





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Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 7:34:28 P.M.
Subject: Re: 554 Transaction Failed HVU:B1 RT#1380785

Dear Jon,

Thanks for getting back to us on our problem of being blocked by AOL. Our ticket number is 1380785 and reference number is 171054229. We are very clear that the "offending URL" was our website WantToKnow.info. We did extensive testing both with our AOL subscribers and non-AOL subscribers. You will find a description of this in the case notes. We have had dozens of supporters call and email AOL asking that the website be unblocked. WantToKnow.info is a website which exposes major corruption and many (including myself) suspect that our website may have been blocked for political reasons.

It appears that the block was lifted this morning, as our emails are now getting through. If you can tell us who initiated the block and why, it would help greatly to dispel the claims of political motivation behind the blocking. I would also highly recommend that you contact a website before blacklisting it, so that the website has an opportunity to defend itself against any claim before such censorship is instituted. I would really appreciate knowing why this block was placed and even when it was then lifted today. As you requested, I included below a copy of a 554 bounce message on an email which mentioned our website. Thanks so much for your help and this, and you have a good day.

With best wishes,
Fred Burks
PEERS Executive Director





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Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 7:54 AM
Subject: Re: 554 Transaction Failed HVU:B1 RT#1380785

Hi Fred,

You can rest assured, your website was blocked for complaints. As such, I highly recommend you set up a complaint feedback loop and remove any AOL.com address that reports spam against your mailings.

http://postmaster.aol.com/tools/fbl.html

Thanks,
Jon





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Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 7:59 AM
Subject: Jon, question about AOL and censorship, ticket number: 1380785

Hi Jon,

AOL ticket number: 1380785, AOL reference number: 171054229

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm afraid that your invitation to "rest assured" that AOL's blocking of WantToKnow.info was the result of complaints does not in the least assure me. I don't know you, and I don't know that you aren't being deceived by your superiors on this. So how can I just trust and accept what you say as being true? If you can give me solid evidence that it was not politically motivated, I will certainly consider it.

Taking this a step deeper, I am convinced that blocking all emails which mention a designated website is not only unethical, it is illegal. Websites don't send out spam. Spam is generated through email. AOL certainly would be within its rights legally and ethically to block all email addresses from a website known to be generating spam, but only the emails. What gives AOL the right to block all emails sent by the general public which mention a particular website, as you did with WantToKnow.info? This has nothing to do with spam. I suspect the spam claim is being used as an excuse to disguise censorship.

What's more, AOL doesn't even attempt to contact the website being blocked to give an opportunity for the suspected website to explain what is happening. It is even more egregious when -- as in the case of WantToKnow.info -- the website and associated emails lists have never engaged in practices which would be considered spamming. Our email lists use a double opt-in subscription process, and we include information on how to unsubscribe from our lists at both the top and bottom of every email sent. This is above and beyond what is required to avoid being labeled as spam.

AOL's practice of blocking any mention of websites in emails sent by the general public is clearly censorship. It is not only unethical, but I believe it could be shown to be illegal, as it prohibits the free flow of information in a democratic society. This could easily be proven to be an infringement on the free speech rights of the public guaranteed under the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. On what legal grounds did AOL have the right to block all emails from anyone in the public mentioning our website, WantToKnow.info? I would very much appreciate an answer to these questions.

Many of us suspect that this is one of those shady areas through which certain individuals and groups with ulterior motives are able to exert censorship under the guise of stopping spam. We all know that there are many people and groups at all levels of industry and government who place their own interests above the interests of the public. Some of these could easily leverage their influence to cause public services like AOL to accuse someone of being a spammer, and with this excuse block any mention of their website in emails sent by the public. In fact, accusations of spam should be dealt with by blocking the spam emails and not blocking any mention of the website. This clearly amounts to deceptive use (blocking websites) of a legitimate function (blocking spam) and thus blocks free speech. I am very interested in your comments and the comments of your superiors on this.

By the way, thank you, Jon, for the information on the complaint loop. I have signed up for that. I am hopeful that this website blocking will not happen again to us. If it does, I will most certainly consider working with EFF to see if we can present a legal case against AOL for this unethical and illegal practice. I highly recommend that you pass on my recommendation to your superiors to stop this illegal blocking of websites. I invite you to join me in calling on AOL to do what is right here.

And if you have any solid evidence of why I should "rest assured" that this was not politically motivated, I welcome it. AOL's block of WantToKnow.info was instituted shortly after we sent out one of our most important, yet most politically sensitive emails (see http://www.WantToKnow.info/financialbankingcoverup). That seems a very unusual coincidence to me. Thanks for your time, and you have a good day.

With best wishes,
Fred Burks
PEERS Executive Director and manager of WantToKnow.info website





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Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 11:43 AM
Subject: RE: Jon, question about AOL and censorship, ticket number: 1380785

Hi Fred,

At this point, I need to take myself out of this thread. If you have any questions, I direct you to our legal department. http://legal.web.aol.com/

Thanks,
Jon





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Note to WantToKnow.info supporters: For more on how this whole problem unfolded, click http://www.wanttoknow.info:80/070406aolcensorsemaillist . You can continue to help us put pressure on AOL about this by contacting AOL at AOLLegal@aol.com. Let's call on AOL to stop this infringement on free speech rights. Feel free to use any of the language above in your communications. Thanks again for all your support.