Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Messages

VERIZON REVERSES ITSELF ON ABORTION MESSAGES
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Adam Liptak]
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program. But the company reversed course Thursday morning, saying it had made a mistake. “The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement. “It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.” Legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages. In reversing course, Verizon did not disclaim the power to block messages it deemed inappropriate. The dispute over the NARAL messages was a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of “net neutrality” — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers. “This is right at the heart of the problem,” said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school, referring to the treatment of text messages. “The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27cnd-verizon.html?hp
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* Verizon Wireless to allow abortion rights messages
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=industryNews&storyID...

* Hill Democrats: Verizon Call raises Net neutrality Concerns
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6484124.html?rssid=193

* Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI)
“Reports of Verizon's actions raise troubling questions about a network operator's ability to determine what its customers receive and from whom. I am particularly concerned by its ability and apparent willingness to interfere when customers choose to receive legitimate and legal communications from an organization. Further, its latest statement does not identify any substantive change in policy. I ask Verizon to decisively state that it will no longer discriminate against any legal content its customers request from any organization.”
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_110/110st93.shtml

* Markey Responds to Verizon Reversal
"I urge Verizon ­ and other wireless carriers ­ to ensure that their company policies do not interfere with the delivery of any lawful content, nor discriminate on the basis of who the sender of such messages may be."
http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3111&I...

* Verizon’s ‘Controversial And Unsavory’ Record
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/27/dusty-verizon/

* A Phone Company's Discretion Isn't Enough
http://feeds.publicknowledge.org/~r/publicknowledge-main/~3/162150951/1202

* Verizon Can’t Be Trusted to Protect Free Speech
http://www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=277

* Verizon Blocks Pro-Choice Text Messaging
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/verizon-blocks-prochoice_b_66...

* NARAL Pro-Choice America Wins Fight over Corporate Censorship
http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/news/press-releases/2007/pr09272007_veri...

* Verizon Ends Text-Message Ban
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR200709...

* Corporate propriety yields to free speech (Commentary)
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-lazarus28sep28,1,3774...
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* NARAL's case for net neutrality
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
"[B]y demonstrating how much power network operators wield over speech, Verizon Wireless and AT&T have strengthened the case for rules that keep the Internet free from their control or anyone else's.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-verizon28sep28,1,...
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