United In Flight WiFi Blocks Popular News Sites
So, just last month, we wrote about United Airlines idiotic inflight video system that forces you to install DRM on your own devices to watch a movie. And, now, it appears that the company is filtering out all sorts of news sites. The EFF's Nate Cardozo was on a flight yesterday when he started noticing that he couldn't get to certain tech websites, including Ars Technica and The Verge -- instead receiving messages they were blocked due to United's "access policy." The same was true for political news site Daily Kos. Eventually he even realized that United also blocks the NY Times (via his phone after the laptop battery ran out). 
Both the terms of use that United has, as well as the company's FAQ about the service warn that "inappropriate or unsuitable for inflight viewing" websites may be blocked: 
Of course, it's difficult to see what kind of content on any of those news sites would be considered inappropriate or unsuitable for inflight viewing. And, you know, it's letting through plenty of much sketchier sites like, uh, us at Techdirt. Basically, this makes no sense at all, and I'm sure that if United's PR people ever getting around to commenting on it, they'll say it was a "glitch" and that it won't happen again. But this is the kind of problem that you run into when you deem yourself able to control what people can and can't access online.
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Both the terms of use that United has, as well as the company's FAQ about the service warn that "inappropriate or unsuitable for inflight viewing" websites may be blocked: Of course, it's difficult to see what kind of content on any of those news sites would be considered inappropriate or unsuitable for inflight viewing. And, you know, it's letting through plenty of much sketchier sites like, uh, us at Techdirt. Basically, this makes no sense at all, and I'm sure that if United's PR people ever getting around to commenting on it, they'll say it was a "glitch" and that it won't happen again. But this is the kind of problem that you run into when you deem yourself able to control what people can and can't access online.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story