Is any website safe? Will a web host arbitrarily decide the content of a user’s site is objectionable? Does a web host have the responsibility of setting standards for others? In the future will Amazon cloud hosting services, and other web hosts regulate themselves on user privacy, better business practices, and data protection before the government steps in?

Amazon,the online bookseller, which also provides web hosting services, has been criticized for being selective with its freedom of speech defenses. What is equally as troubling is the power one politician has to make a phone call and demand a private American internet company take down controversial material. Amazon stopped hosting WikiLeaks on its own servers within 24 hours after other webhosting services including every DNS were reportedly contacted by Homeland Security and Senator Joseph Lieberman.

In 2008 Joe Lieberman wrote to Google and demanded they remove “content” produced by an Islamist terrorist organization from YouTube because it demonstrated violence and hate speech. Google removed some of the YouTube videos.

This presents new questions. Maybe we are going to have to rewrite our First Amendment to include site hosting culpability. Will web hosts take down sites just because a government inquiry is made? Freedom of speech doesn’t give any of us the right to violate the law, but why weren’t the documents just removed? Why was the site shut down? There was no court order, nor was any Cease and Desist letter sent.

I am trying to follow the thought process of Amazon. The web hosting company was criticized for allowing the sale of child pornography on their site. Amazon spent days refusing to delete “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure” on free speech grounds, and defended their position by stating First Amendment rights give us the right not to shop with them. The story line is about a 32 year-old pastor sexually abusing a 15 year-old child. The author stated;

“ This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain{sic} rules for these people to follow,” read the product description.

It wasn’t until a nationwide boycott was threatened with people complaining how Amazon could allow such garbage to be distributed solely for financial gain the ad was removed from the web site, however Japan Amazon reports it to be one of their best Kindle sales.

Amazon isn’t new to controversy either. In 2009 they stopped selling “Rape Lay,” a first person video game where the main character stalks and consequently rapes a mother and her daughters.

Amazon is currently accepting orders for “I Am the Market: How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton, in Five Easy Lessons” by Luca Rastello.

It is beyond reasonable comprehension to state that drugs, sex, and violence against children and women should not be included in Amazon’s TOS violations regarding web sites “otherwise injurious to third parties or objectionable.”

In their defense Amazon claims they do not pre-screen customers, but the terms of service must be followed. They claim that WikiLeaks did not follow their rules and shutting down the site had nothing to do with any government inquiry; rather it was the right decision, and they wanted to set standards for others.

For readers who want to ensure their websites are not shut down, review the TOS of your web host. Another part of Amazon’s TOS reads, “ You represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content … that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.”

With the growing debacle surrounding WikiLeaks, it will be interesting to view how many Amazon web hosting clients actually exercise their first amendment right not to conduct business with them

It’s disturbing to think an influential senator can tell a web host what can be on the internet. Less disturbing is the powerful influence of the internet when it flexes back.