It probably wasn’t what the company had in mind, but Verizon just helped make the case for net neutrality a little stronger.
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.
The other leading wireless carriers have accepted the program, which allows people to sign up for text messages from Naral by sending a message to a five-digit number known as a short code.
Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs are used by many political candidates and advocacy groups to send updates to supporters.
But legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages.
As publius responded, “Don’t know about you, but I’m pretty psyched to hand over control of the Internet to Verizon and Comcast…. In other news, the highway department banned trucks that carry condoms from federal interstate highways. The Post Office banned solicitations from the Democratic National Committee and refuses to deliver them. And the Washington state electric board (based in Redmond) prohibited electricity from being used for Apple and Google products.”
It’s really that bad. It’s exactly why, within a few hours of people finding this story on the front page of the New York Times, Verizon quickly reversed course.
Indeed, it looks like the telecom tried to think of a defense, couldn’t, and folded.
[T]he company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.
“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.
“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”
Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow of ideas.”
Glad to hear it. Of course, even in its reversal, Verizon did not disclaim its power to block messages it deemed inappropriate, only that it won’t do so in this case.
Stay tuned.