Amazon Cites Terms of Use in Expulsion of WikiLeaks

Amazon expelled WikiLeaks from its Web site hosting service this week after an aide to Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) called the company and asked about the relationship.

Amazon — which rents server space to companies in addition to its better-known business of selling books, music and other products online — said that it had canceled its relationship with WikiLeaks not because of “a government inquiry,” but because it decided that the organization was violating the terms of service for the program. “When companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn't rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won't injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere,” the company said. WikiLeaks, which began making public the first of a cache of more than 250,000 leaked State Department cables this week, apparently moved its Web site to Amazon’s servers in recent weeks after “denial of service” attacks had sought to shut it down.

On Tuesday, after reading about the move in media reports, a staff member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which Sen Lieberman leads, called Amazon and asked several pointed questions, including, “ ‘If you are aware of this, do you have plans to take it down?’ ” according to Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the committee. On Wednesday morning, Phillips said, an official at Amazon called back and said the company had “terminated the relationship because it was a violation of terms of use,” but offered no further details. She said Sen Lieberman found out about his aide’s inquiry only afterward, but strongly approved of it — and of Amazon’s decision.