Net Neutrality Update: Craigslist, Authentium and Cox

Craig Newmark has posted an update on the Authentium/Cox craigslist blocking situation, here is a copy:

Folks, first, sorry for taking so long for this update, but I wanted to give the Authentium folks to today to respond; that didn't happen, and I guess we've waited long enough.

We heard about this problem in February, and folks on our tech team tried calling Authentium, but no one would pick up the phone. I found a way to contact them, and they admitted that it was a bug in their firewall system. They did spend some time describing it in detail, which I appreciate, and they let me know a fix would be found soon. That was in February.

After waiting a while, they ceased responding to phone calls and emails.

However, after news started appearing on this, I was contacted by them again, last week. They restated that it was their problem, and they'd be shipping a fix to Cox in August; no assurance that it would actually be sent to customers in a proactive manner.

I asked: why did it take so long?, why were my calls and emails unanswered? how will this be fixed in the field? That was five days ago. The details are here

First, I want to thank members of the Cox abuse team, I've worked with some myself to go after bad guys. I honestly have no idea as to the role of Cox management in this.

I guess I'm real disappointed in Authentium, it's taking an extraordinary amount of time to fix this. As you see, it'll take at least six months to just start to deploy the fix.

Craig Newmark

UPDATE John Sharp, Founder & CEO, Authentium TALKS BACK:"We spoke to Craig via phone last week." For more on the technical details of this, please browse to the Craigslist link at www.authentium.com/support/ or contact your Authentium service provider partner support center.