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Personally, I thank whatever higher power there is for those people and their actions. Their actions raise the "censorship costs" those private enterprises (se

Personally, I thank whatever higher power there is for those people and their actions. Their actions raise the "censorship costs" those private enterprises (seem to have to) pay from now on upon deciding it is in their best business interest to discontinue customer relations with customers who engage in allegedly illegal activities without investigating the supposed illegality of their customers' actions themselves.

ars 16y ago
No, what it does is make companies refuse to do business with such customers in the first place. You do anything not mainstream? Sorry, we won't accept your business.
- dsplittgerber 16y ago
  For companies who provide basic functionalities (hosting, payments, etc.) it's just not feasible to check out a potential customer ex ante - they have far too many customers for up-front checks. "Censorship costs" refer to ex-post checks on customers on which businesses have received complaints or inquiries from Governmental entities.
  - dhyasama 16y ago
    I work for a payment company and that simply isn't true. We do in-depth checks on every customer. Risk assessment is a major part of our business.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      With payment companies, yes. I think ars is talking about Amazon and Paypal, which don't.
      - sigzero 16y ago
        They don't now...but they could easily do it in the future. There is no gray area here. What they did was idiotic.
- civilian 16y ago
  They have no way of identifying which customers are ddosing them :D
  - 0x44 16y ago
    The customer ars was referring to was Wikileaks and potential future customers who engage in non-mainstream political/commercial action. The resulting backlash from the Wikileaks affair will encourage the decision makers at Amazon or Paypal to avoid doing business with non-mainstream customers in the future if there is an even insignificant chance that in the future some non-mainstream customer will offend those in power.

ars 16y ago

No, what it does is make companies refuse to do business with such customers in the first place. You do anything not mainstream? Sorry, we won't accept your business.

dsplittgerber 16y ago
For companies who provide basic functionalities (hosting, payments, etc.) it's just not feasible to check out a potential customer ex ante - they have far too many customers for up-front checks. "Censorship costs" refer to ex-post checks on customers on which businesses have received complaints or inquiries from Governmental entities.
- dhyasama 16y ago
  I work for a payment company and that simply isn't true. We do in-depth checks on every customer. Risk assessment is a major part of our business.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    With payment companies, yes. I think ars is talking about Amazon and Paypal, which don't.
    - sigzero 16y ago
      They don't now...but they could easily do it in the future. There is no gray area here. What they did was idiotic.
civilian 16y ago
They have no way of identifying which customers are ddosing them :D
- 0x44 16y ago
  The customer ars was referring to was Wikileaks and potential future customers who engage in non-mainstream political/commercial action. The resulting backlash from the Wikileaks affair will encourage the decision makers at Amazon or Paypal to avoid doing business with non-mainstream customers in the future if there is an even insignificant chance that in the future some non-mainstream customer will offend those in power.