A chart of one of the results of our WHIR reader poll on WikiLeaks as a customer
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — I’m not going to spend a lot of time explaining the WikiLeaks saga here. I’ll take for granted that you’re familiar with the story, and have a general sense if its import to the hosting community.
For the sake of information, I will include links here to all our coverage of Wikileaks, and specifically to something I wrote last week about the whole saga’s interesting side-effect of throwing the Internet services under the microscope (and into the line of fire of vengeful, politically motivated hackers).
I would like to spend a little time discussing the idea of what we’re doing here. We wanted to survey our readers (many of them web hosting providers, and most of them Internet service providers of some kind) to get a better sense for where their priorities lie when it relates to difficult or complicated customers, like WikiLeaks, and to get an idea of how service providers look at a potentially political situation.
The main reason for running the poll was to publish something looking at the data, which is of course what you’re reading now. I’m pretty pleased with what could be gleaned from the answers (and of course we’re extremely grateful to everyone who filled out the survey), so the plan is definitely to do more of this in the future.
A note about methodology: this was an informal poll of our readers, and the number of respondents was short of what researchers would call statistically significant. So try to think of it as interesting food for discussion.
Like it or not, the choice to host or not host a site like WikiLeaks is a political decision. And it’s something that has the potential to upset customers or non-customers, no matter what you choose. A lot of people consider it a free-speech issue, while others consider it a matter of US national security (and there’s probably some complicated overlap between those two).
Our first question was straightforward, but by no means simple – “if approached, would you be willing to provide hosting or related services for WikiLeaks, or a similarly controversial site?”
The choice of answers (yes or no) was limited enough that it’s difficult to read anything into the answers themselves (there being several significant reasons someone would answer either one) – but the percentage split is telling. The near-even split of 46.2 percent “yes” and 53.8 percent “no” illustrates that – much the same as in the general public – there is nothing close to a consensus in the service provider world.
Our second question was an attempt to glean some insight into how service providers might approach the discovery of a customer like WikiLeaks on their networks – “if you discovered, without prompting, that one of your service accounts was being used by WikiLeaks, or a similar site, would you continue to host it?
The results were interesting. 37.6 percent said they’d shut down the site for violating their terms of service. 20.4 percent said they’d continue to host the site, but would take it down if they received a request from the authorities. And 41.9 percent said they’d continue to host it, and would seriously investigate the legality of any takedown request they received.
The first thing that jumps out here is that the numbers who answered that they would host the site in the first question and who said they would investigate the request in the second. They’re close, though not exactly the same. And I can confirm that while the overlap isn’t 100 percent, it is substantial.
I think it’s fair to infer there’s a correlation between willingness to host a controversial site in the first place, and willingness to go to bat for that site when confronted by the authorities. It also stands to reason that there is some similarity in mindset between someone who would refuse the site if asked, and would terminate the existing customer, though it might not be as simple as political opposition to the site, or a PR move (which we get into more in the next question). Hosting providers have the health of their network and the security of their existing customers to consider, and many likely see a site like WikiLeaks as a threat to that network health.
Finally, we asked what they thought was the biggest danger to a hosting or related service provider by a site like WikiLeaks. 10.8 percent said a personal moral objection to the content. 24.7 percent said potential legal liability. 11.8 said the possibility of alienating a portion of their existing customers. 41.9 percent said the threat of politically motivated hacking activity. And 10.8 percent listed other reasons.
Among those who listed other, most of them used the “please specify” space to say that more than one of the previously listed options concerned them. Among those, most said attacks and legal liability were the two that concerned them most.
Several “other” respondents brought up an interesting point that wasn’t on the list – that the regular operation of WikiLeaks might be too large an undertaking for a smaller web hosting provider.
In my opinion, a couple of things were thrown into relief by this poll.
One was the fact that hosting providers are inclined to (and some might suggest they have to) consider a given decision in terms of how it might impact the performance of the services they already provide to customers. In that sense, politics aside, there’s an obvious reason to think twice about signing on a customer that has the potential attract the wrong kind of attention from both the law, and a community of vengeful hackers.
Minimizing risk is common practice in most businesses. And while there are hosting providers who have found a nice catering to the sites that fear attacks, takedown efforts or negative attention, the likelihood of any or all those things might make a customer too risky for the average service provider.
Another was the issue that, as far as the general public is concerned, hosts internet service providers are somehow more inextricable from their customers than service providers in other fields. I haven’t heard any mention of who provides Julian Assange with cell phone service, for instance. This might be an issue of a general failure to understand the role a host plays in hosting a website, or how automated the purchasing process can be. Nevertheless, as we have seen time and again, hosts are often held accountable for the content of their customers’ websites.
If you didn’t participate in the survey, feel free to add your two cents through the comment section at the bottom of the story. I’m certainly interested to hear some more discussion about this.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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