Why, yes, yes they should. Or they could just update a blog with the same information. If my ISP chooses to block something, then I want to know — if only so I don’t waste my time trying to reach it. More importantly, I want to know WHY. If you, as an ISP, block data coming from an address because you think its part of a DDOS, then let your customers know — and they’ll appreciate it. Block data from an address because you think its an evil P2P site, then your customers will probably hate you, but at least you’ll be able to point to your TOS agreement and disarm the hate. The current standard ISP policy (leave the customer in the dark and then do retroactive damage control if someone cares) is contemptuous of the customer, and only leads to misunderstandings and bad press.

At this point you’ll argue that if you tell people what you’re blocking, they’ll work around it somehow, probably by using proxies or TOR or some other technology that’s otherwise proscribed by your TOS. News flash: they will anyway, but attempting to hide what you’re doing will just annoy your legitimate / TOS-abiding customers.

It’s an interesting line but even virus scanners alert you and allow end users to decide whether to delete a file or just quarantine it. End of day, the user ought to have the right to make the decision.

More importantly (and somewhat more worrisome, in my view) is when a company like Amazon goes ahead and deletes NEW content that has been created on a device (as was the case with annotations on the book they deleted). That seems to be stepping over a line…

It is true that a bit of paranoia inspired this post but remember that only the paranoid survives I’m not asking for ISPs to publish a press release but maybe something more akin to what the Mozilla foundation does, which is publish a list of the sites that have been blocked (you can find their list here ). This kind of transparency goes a long way towards restoring trust.

As well, Microsoft has a part of it’s monthly OS security update search the entire storage drive(s) on every PC and erase programs that are on it’s hit list.

Now what if either one of these entities erases something a Windows user does not want erased? These erasures happen several times a month for most Windows PC users! It could happen!

The horror! We must stop this!

“And while today’s corporate interventions are based on the best of intentions, what about tomorrow’s? or the next day’s? Will those intentions still sync up with yours?”

I say we stop the Windows anti-virus makers and Microsoft’s security updates right now! If anyone can’t be trusted it’s those bastards.

Thank God I use a Mac.