03.26.12
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Censorship of The Pirate Bay
Not just Bing censors information, applications do too
Summary: Microsoft becomes copyright police by censoring Web sites
THE monopolist from Redmond is no stranger to censorship, as we showed here before.
The latest example of Microsoft censorship was brought up by Ryan from the IRC channels. He writes that Microsoft would make any tyrant dictator proud:
When the user enters a link and it’s to a site that Microsoft doesn’t like, Microsoft’s new approach is to block it at their server and report back to the user that the site is “dangerous”.
So far they seem to do it with The Pirate Bay, which probably hosts and serves less malware and spyware than Microsoft itself (source source source) or sites that aren’t being blocked by them, such as CNET Download.com which delivers crapware bundles with legitimate software.
Since the censorship of links is done at the server level, it means that (not shockingly), Microsoft is monitoring, logging, and spying on everything you say or do while connected to their chat service. It also means that users of alternative messenger software which doesn’t come bundled with the ability to display malicious advertisements like Microsoft’s official client does will not escape the Microsoft server spying on them and kicking back any links that Microsoft doesn’t like. If Microsoft can’t keep their own software and websites from installing malicious software onto Windows PCs, they shouldn’t be blocking anyone else under that excuse.
“You should post that in your links,” Ryan suggested, “the Windows Live Messenger censorship” [original article] and to quote:
Those who try to paste a Pirate Bay link to their friends through Windows Live Messenger will notice that it never reaches its destination.
Instead, Microsoft alerts the sender that The Pirate Bay is unsafe. Apparently, the company is actively monitoring people’s communications to prevent them from linking to sites they deem to be a threat.
Will Microsoft ‘fix’ this ‘bug’ after the backlash? The Pirate Bay helps people download perfectly legitimate GNU/Linux distributions. █
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mcinsand said,
March 26, 2012 at 11:40 am
Bing hasn’t exactly been taking the world by storm. It’s only a matter of time before Bing implodes, and this information won’t help. Even the mainstream will shy away from a search engine that does not fully respond to user requests.