According to what I read at Athentium's website, Cox customers may, if they choose, download a "software enhancement" which provides some spyware protection. Anything which an end user voluntarily installs on his computer, which he could equally well choose not to install and his ISP would be none the wiser, is not a net neutrality issue. If this is the "Cox Security Suite", and I suspect it is, then the Cox customers have to do nothing more radical than uninstalling the broken software.

If Cox is running a transparent proxy which filters their users' web traffic without their knowledge, then that *is* a net neutrality issue.

I'll wager a dollar on incompetence over malice.

Lyle, it probably is not malice, but Cox should be aware of the sensitive issues that something like this creates. And it doesn't explain that Authentium has been ignoring Craigslist requests for 3 months. Yes, customers could disable the software but most don't know how to and nor should they...

I'm using Cox high speed in Florida, and I've never had any trouble accessing Craigs. I was just on there yesterday in fact.

ISPs have had intentional and unintentional problems for years. Making laws about which filters they use won't work as sustainably, I'd wager, as making sure individuals remain free to choose services which suit them.

I'd rather have Cox go belly-up (if necessary) than tie down potential new service providers with a couple tomes of legal prerequisites before serving customers.

"I'd rather have Cox go belly-up (if necessary) than tie down potential new service providers with a couple tomes of legal prerequisites before serving customers."

Um....whats so hard about telling telcos they can't block services from competing internet sites?

Agreed, it is unlikely a neutrality issue. It is an issue of technology and customer service, though, and those should be the drivers. Conspiracy theories don't hold a lot of water for me.

If we were to have neutrality legislation in place, it would be ill-defined, and it means that technology glitches are resolved by litigation. Yeek. Probably not the outcome we want.

More laws aren't the answer here. If Cox is doing this intentionally, it probably falls under existing unfair competition laws; Craigslist could sue.

It should be noted that generally Cox cable operations aren't in the same markets as Cox Newspapers. I would suspect it's more of technical bungling than an attempt to protect a classified advertising empire.

I'm a Cox Cable user and have never had any problem accessing Craiglist classifieds.

I live in Santa Barbara, CA. My ISP is Cox. I just tried to access craigslist.org, it did not go through. I tried again with santabarbara.craigslist.org and it went right through. I tried again with plain craigslist.org and it went through fine. Meh...

I have Cox and Craigslist is not blocked. I used to have Earthlink and before that Charter. My best experience has been with Cox. Of course, I never install any software from an ISP. Nothing is ever free. This article is valid, but it's sensational and slanted.

From my own experience as a cox cable internet user there is no throttling of craigslist or any other site that i know of. I have no problem getting there or using the site. I have never installed any kind of cox security suite, so if thats the problem never mind, but if you're going to make these acusations you might want to try it in a few places first.

Lyle, it doesn't matter which end of the pipe the ISP employs measures to quash traffic. My money says Authentium does this because they're getting a little payola backscratch from Cox. Follow the money.

The SAVE THE INTERNET campaign is so misleading...

"Big phone companies want the government to *regulate* the internet in their favor."

Aren't they pushing for the government to stay out of regulating the net?

If the government says Cox can't charge me more to go to certain websites, or certain websites faster, then what can't the government tell them what to do? Slippery slope.

Don't do it unless you want more bureaucracy and less investment in broadband.

Email to SBC/ATT is likely wonky because SBC/ATT email is actually run by Yahoo.

But John I can't see your problem ?

A law about net neutrality shouldn't specify which filters ISPs can use. It would only have to specifyy the following:

1. A service/access provider is not allowed to be a content provider, both functions must be separated.

2. A service provider must allow unrestricted access to all parts of the internet, filtering may only happen with the following aspects:
- bandwidth
- clientside but not with software provided by the ISP

3. Websites/Companies have a right to sue ISPs or for lost business, their damages may be calculated by income generated from users with other ISPs.

This article doesn't touch on the fact that Cox has an even greater horse in the game than newspaper classifieds. They are part owners of Trader publishing, i.e. Auto Trader, Truck Trader, Boat Trader, etc. Probably the biggest publisher of classified ads out ther.

(Assuming this was done intentionally, when are these telcos going to understand that all we want from them it their connection, and nothing else? Any services that are going to try and offer is going to be inferior two whoever is out there already doing it for years.

It's not just Cox, though. I use COVAD and can't get in. They say it's not them. Craigslist says it's not them. I've tried everything suggested on the various forums to no avail. I've given up and taken to using an anon proxy server when I want to access craigslist from home.

Cox does not block access to any legal website and Craig's List is no exception. The problem lies with how the Security Suite software interprets Craig’s List’s initial packet connections, which results in an extremely slow connection.

Authentium — the company that designed Cox's security software — is aware of the problem and their engineers have modified the firewall driver by creating a beta version that resolves the issue. This version will be part of the next release of Cox High Speed Internet Security Suite and will be available to all Cox High Speed Internet users later this summer.

I use Cox Cable internet service and just got in to Craigslist with no problem or hesitation.

I smell a conspiracy theory run amok.

Cox Communications (the division of Cox that provides internet service) and Cox Newspapers are completely separate divisions, and those who know Cox know that Cox operations are highly decentralized. Their offices are in separate buildings, and there would be very little reason for employees to interact. There's little to no collaboration of the business units, so it's extremely unlikely that Cox Newspapers would ask Cox Communications to block the use of Craig's List, especially since there is very little (if any) overlap in the markets where they own newspapers and where Cox Communications provides internet service. Aside from that, I don't think they'd do it because of ethical standards.

Cox blocks Skype (dropping 48% of the packets) making it unusable.

I've called them and they've denied it, but when I changed out cable modems, they gave me a different IP for about 10 minutes during which time I was getting 0% packet loss and Skype was working fine. After my regular IP was reassigned back to me, it went back to 48% packet loss again.

When I pointed this out to them, they said Skype was an unreliable and second rate service and I should not expect it work. (Of course Cox sells phone service here and is a direct Skype competitor)

There is absolutely no alternative to Cox in Scottsdale, Arizona. No DSL by any provider. I have been told that Cox does not block Skype on their 'commercial services' which Cox will sell me for a mere $289/month!

The rhetoric on this issue has been amazing. What Google, Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo and others are pushing for is actually MORE REGULATION of the Internet.

The internet was founded on light or no regulation and many of these companies wouldn't even exist if more regulations were put on the Internet in its infancy.

Know how many times a service provider has abused its power of access? Exactly once. And the FCC quickly acted. These companies are BILLION dollar companies and want to the government to REGULATE in order to give them an advantage. The service providers are simply saying "let the market decide." Isn't the market a better place for the Internet to flourish than Capitol Hill?

I would commend Cisco's Charlie Giancarlo's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to everyone - this is where this issue should come out. (IMHO)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114973113198074497.html

Just noticed a new KB article on the Authentium site. http://authentium.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/authentium.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2140&p_created=1149714532&p_sid=gGSMDB9i&p_accessibility=0&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD0zMDQmcF9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2VhcmNoX25sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&p_topview=1

John, you are missing the flip side of the issue. The regulations that were proposed for Net Neutrality simply guaranteed that ISPs couldn't throttle or halt traffic in favor of those who paid for better access.

The bells want to get money to provide preferential treatment (so, Verizon will provide full bandwidth to access their partner MSN, but will throttle Yahoo if they don't pay up). As a user, you would get slower speeds accessing Yahoo pages, but would see blazing speed accessing MSN sites. That is what net neutrality is trying to prevent. The bells have managed to make the issue murky (as shown by the link you've provided)...the COPE bill allows bells to do this unless net neutrality language is added to prevent it.

Without the net neutrality language, the FCC will no longer be able to go after an ISP in the future because of what is contained in COPE.

In regards to the Craigslist issue here, I'm not certain it's a net neutrality issue, but I think it demonstrates an effect similar to the complaints when AOL wanted to have preferential treatment of paid e-mail. There is no incentive for Cox to fix the Craiglist issue...so why bother?

The other side you have to look at is, does Cox TRULY feel threatened by cragistlist.org and their free ad listings? I could be wrong, but I don’t think they really are. Go out on the streets and ask 100 people where they’d advertise if they had something to sell. Most would say the newspaper. Then ask the same 100 people if they know about craigslist.org. I’m willing to bet the majority have never even heard of it. Right now at least, I’d say the local newspaper is the most effective way to sell something. I once had six kittens to give away. I put an ad in the Sunday paper. By 10 AM Sunday they were all gone. I don’t think I would have gotten those kind of results with an internet ad, free or not. Think about this too: Cox owns a bunch of newspapers; you can buy an ad in those newspapers. Most newspapers are on the internet too. So when you list something in the newspaper, you get a free online listing as well. Let’s see:

Use craigslist.org, get a free ad but only reach an audience that also knows about craigslist.org

Or

Pay a small fee to buy an ad in a newspaper, and reach the newspaper-reading audience as well as people that read the paper online.

I think I’d choose the latter.

Follow the money. There is no conspiracy except to make as much money from their consumers because the internet is becoming a part of an individual's life.

What is a problem is that any democratic process that involves a people powered movement like Ebay or MoveOn.org will be crippled by the pipe providers incessant drive for profit.

R&D for the creation of the internet and broadband have been carried out by the taxpayers not corporations.

What major backbone providers want is to tax, yes tax, content now in order to increase their bottom line without any guarantees of service efficiency increases or oversight into possible discrimination.

This is entirely a problem caused by Craig's List. They're advertising a TCP Window size of 0.

See Jim Lippard's blog for details, and please correct your story.

The bottom line: Matt Stoller and Save the Internet are lying.

Authentium has acknowledged that this is their error, but are taking an extraordinary amount of time to fix.

Full update at cnewmark.com

Thanks!

Craig

Craig's List still advertises a TCP Window size of 0.

See Authentium's response to Craig's claims.

I've long suspected that Craig Newmark wasn't very bright, and now I know he's a shameless liar as well.

The internet was founded on light or no regulation and many of these companies wouldn't even exist if more regulations were put on the Internet in its infancy.

I would like to see a source for this. The internet was, from my own knowledge, was founded on ARPANET, which was run by the government. I doubt there were no regs. But even if there were no regulations the current state of the internet is a far cry from the beginnings. When it was mostly universities, the government and a few business, maybe there wasn't much need for regulation (plus nobody was sure what to regulate). Just because it has always been doesn't mean is should always be.

Hmmm. that gives a lot to think about on net neutrality.

Here's a great article on buying and selling cars on Craig's List:

http://www.mdwholesale.com/Craigs_List_FSBO.html

Zeek T.

Have been trying for days to connect to Craig's List - I have cox as my service provider - it is blocked - I don't believe I ever signed up for Cox to "Police" my browser options

I've used COX for years and never had a problem accessing Craigs list or any other URL including the AP/API/BBC or any other URL-except those restricted by US government regulatons. Your problem may be that your using one of Cox's tool bars, spam filters or other COX supplied software. YOU DO Not need any of that extra software/garbage from COX. Do not use their install disk-you do not need it!! All you need is a cable modem with a vaild MAC address ttbomk. That may be the problem. Take it off your pc, and don't use COX as your home page. If your going through a router make sure that someone hasn't put that URL on the exclude list.

Email to SBC/ATT is likely wonky because SBC/ATT email is actually run by Yahoo.

I am a cox internet subscriber; although I don't have a problem connecting to craigslist; they have walmart.com and photobucket blocked; when I tried to get help from them they blame the problem on me. Thats not right, I disabled everything that could possibly limit my access to sites and their response was that I need to get a "professional" out to do the same thing I have already done at a overpriced rate. BTW the blocking of sites are kept to individual stations (waypoints) others who use different "waypoints in my town have access, but my neighbor can't connect to either site as well.

yeah i'm having the same issues...but more from myspace and facebook! and another site....
don't know what it is... as i have reset the router. thought it was that but must be cox

Since Tom Foremski seems to be chummy with Craigslist officials maybe he can ask them why they endorse a policy on Craigslist called “flagging” where any harmless advertiser can be arbitrarily deleted from Craigslist by any anonymous flaggers who choose to do so. Flaggers are not held accountable for any malicious conduct against others. They don’t have to identify themselves. They don’t have to give any rational reason for arbitrarily deleting someone’s ad. Craigslist seems to give them Carte Blanche to just hide in the dark and arbitrarily attack any innocent person they choose. Sort of like the Ku Klux Klan. Thanks for your sincere concern. -J. Bell

J. Bell: I'm happy to flag your concerns with Mr Craig and Jim Buckmaster. I wrote about the potential for this type of activity a few years ago. I called it google rank assassination at the time, and it describes a similar approach, except that it seems much easier to do on Craigslist.
I know that they are always on the look out for this type of malevolent behaviour and seek to eliminate it...

Surprised to know that cox's security software had blocked a site like craigslist which is been accessed by a large number of people. Even i have cox so even i cant access craigslist.org. Therefore i m using other sites instead of craigslist inlcude clickindia.com and freeclassifiedindia.com

Pardon the pun, but I don't think that Cox would have the balls.