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Comment by ablerman | Hacker News Reader

You can host whatever the fuck you want. So can GoDaddy.

Apparently you can't host whatever you want. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this comment section talking about this story.

Not sure you understand the meaning of the word "host" in this context.

Rest assured, I do

Well, then your post is obviously nonsense to you, just as it was to several other people.

You buy a server, find a coloc facility, pay the price to colocate, plug your server in, host whatever you want, free of essentially all terms of service. That's "hosting whatever you want".

What happens when the colocation facility throws you out too?

When you can't find another one that allows colocation with a ToS that will let you do whatever you want, you rent a T1 line or better to your own home.

Have you ever heard of a ISP kicking someone off a rented dedicated cable? Maybe it has happened. I have no memory of ever hearing about this in any case where there wasn't prima facie illegal acitivit occuring over the line.

Doesn't every ISP have terms of service? And aren't GoDaddy's terms of service all that this website violated?

GoDaddy (at least in this instance) is acting as a hosting provider, not an ISP. As a result, they are providing more than just an IP connection, and their ToS are more restrictive.

If you use just an IP connection, you're likely to find that the ToS cover only actual illegal activity.

https://business.comcast.com/customer-notifications/acceptab... says you may not "distribute tools or devices designed or used for compromising security or whose use is otherwise unauthorized, such as password guessing programs, decoders, password gatherers, keystroke loggers, analyzers, cracking tools, packet sniffers, encryption circumvention devices, or Trojan Horse programs". This means Comcast can ban you for mirroring a Kali ISO.

And for this website in particular, I can totally see Comcast citing "participate in the collection of large numbers of email addresses, screen names, or other identifiers of others (without their prior consent)" to ban it. Isn't that basically the exact same argument GoDaddy made?

Then don't use Comcast. You need a dedicated service, such as Verizon's T1 offerings. ToS is here:

https://www.verizon.com/business/terms/aup/

But to return to the Comcast AuP for a moment. Their stated goals are:

"In general, the Policy prohibits uses and activities involving the Service that are illegal, infringe the rights of others, or interfere with or diminish the use and enjoyment of the Service by others."

Do you see believe that someone ought to be allowed to do what the texas site was doing? Do you believe that Comcast's policy is actually wrong? Do you feel a need to support an organization that tries to collect information in that way (regardless of the intended purpose) ?

Because to me, there are two ways of looking at this question:

1. Should anyone be able to use an internet connection and/or a hosting service to be able to collect information supposedly about other people?

2. Should anyone be allowed to make available any data they want to via an internet connection and/or a hosting service?

My answer to (2) is essentially an firm yes, with exceptions for illegal material and some wobbliness on copyright.

My answer to (1) is a firm no, and even though it would require "hosting" something, the denial of service is based on the data collection rather than data being made available.

It is possible that no ISP will offer you even a dedicated T1 and allow you to engage in (1). My take on that is that you can still host whatever you want, despite being prohibited from engaging in certain kinds of data collection.

I think the key word in your post is "support". Providing infrastructure services to someone and supporting them are different things. Society already acknowledges that it's not okay to cut off a building's water, electricity, or natural gas just because you don't like some activity that takes place in said building. Shouldn't Internet access be considered an infrastructure service too? And if not, then aren't you making an argument against net neutrality?

I am strongly in favor of net neutrality.

There are still things that I think warrant disconnecting someone's IP connectivity in the same way that you can do things that will justify cutting off water, electricity or gas.

There's a larger set of things that I think can justify a hosting service saying "sorry, we just don't want to provide this service to you anymore". I don't consider hosting to be a public utility, unlike IP connectivity.

"You can host $Site" != "Somebody else must be willing to host $Site for you".

Same as "You can cook $Food" != "Somebody else must be willing to cook $Food for you".

You can also NOT host whatever you don't want. Epik and Digital Ocean picked up the baton, but I don't know if Digital Ocean has had a chance to act on this yet - it's a long weekend. We already know that Epik is not bothered by moral choices.

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