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Well, it's finally started, the gestapo is moving in.

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Namco:
Those idiots over at Verizon have seen fit to remove all the alt.* newsgroups, so no more binary newsgroups, no more alt.games.mame, no more Howard Stern, no more.... thousands of great newsgroups gone.

So since Verizon has removed 30% of my Internet experience, are they going to lower my bill 30%? I doubt it. I should've checked my newsgroups more often, here it's been almost a month since they removed them and I barely noticed. This makes me sick. Now I'm debating a Giganews subsrciption, but that's going to raise my Internet bill another $12.99 per month.

I'm almost speechless. ---daisies---.

This is just an excuse to lower the amount of services they offer while charging the same price in the name of stopping child porn. It's like chopping your leg off to cure an ingrown toenail. And when the creeps move to IRC chat, they'll kill that too. And when they move to private, encrypted torrent sites, they'll have an excuse to choke off bittorrent packets next. Soon the Internet will become a tiered service like your cell phone plan with access to nothing but corporate pay services where you get to pay .03 cents to page.


--- Quote ---IMPORTANT: CHANGE IN VERIZON NEWSGROUP SERVICE
 
On 06/24/2008, Verizon will be modifying its Newsgroup offerings to
only offer groups in the Big-8 Newsgroup hierarchies, which are listed
below. Users will not be able to post or download from any other
newsgroups.
 
comp.*
humanities.*
misc.*
news.*
rec.*
sci.*
soc.*
talk.*

More information on the Big 8 hierarchies is available at
www.big-8.org.
 
The 0.verizon.* newsgroup hierarchy will also continue to be
available.
 
In preparation for this change, you will need to modify your news
client(s) and unsubscribe from all newsgroups other than the
newsgroups listed above. Failure to do so may interfere with the
functioning of the Verizon network or use of the network by other
Verizon users which is a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.
 
 
 
INFORMATION ABOUT CHANGES TO YOUR NEWSGROUP SERVICE
 
 
When will Verizon change its News service to carry only the Big 8?
 
The change will be effective on June 24, 2008.  After June 24th,
Verizon’s Newsgroup service will carry only the Big 8 news hierarchies
and the 0.verizon.* hierarchy. 
 
If I continue to use the Verizon News service, are any changes to my
software required?
 
There are no changes required to your software, but you will need to
unsubscribe from all Newsgroups other than the Big 8 hierarchies and
the 0.verizon.* hierarchy noted above.    The following link explains
how to subscribe and unsubscribe in Outlook Express:
 
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171190
 
Users that continue to subscribe to unsupported newsgroups may
experience poor computer performance and slow throughput speeds over a
period of time. Failure to unsubscribe may also interfere with the
functioning of the Verizon network or use of the network by other
Verizon users which is a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.   
]
 
If I want to access Newsgroups different from the ones you carry, what
are my options?
 
There are several commercial news providers that you can consider.
You may want to check out some options at
http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm.  The content available, posting
policies, terms and prices will vary, so you should select the one
that is right for you.  If you elect to access a non-Verizon newsgroup
over the Verizon Network, our terms of service and acceptable use
policy will still apply to your use of our Service. 
 
Will this change to the newsgroup service affect my Internet service?
 
No.  This change will NOT affect your ability to use the Internet or
other commercial newsgroup services. The change only affects the
number of newsgroups accessible through Verizon’s newsgroup service.
 

--- End quote ---

Namco:

--- Quote from: pinballjim on July 16, 2008, 11:19:15 am ---Welcome to a month ago, and they're not blocking the traffic, they're just not providing the servers for 'free' anymore.




--- End quote ---

The servers are still there and they are still free. What they did was remove all the newsgroups that generated any traffic. News.verizon.net has not gone anywhere, it's just missing the entire range of alt.* groups and they're NOT forwarding any traffic from those groups. They don't have to block any traffic, since they effectively killed it all by killing newsgroups.

Namco:
Also, they did not inform their customers of this. The only way I would have known about it as a customer of theirs is if I subscribed to 0.verizon.announce and read a post there. There were no letters mailed out to their customers and no email sent informing of the change. There has been no announcement in the media about it, it's just not right.

hatrick:
Most ISP's are going with this trend. Mine did the same (cableone). The newsgroups are used by a small minority and are an expense that draws little customer base (according to them).

There are lots of subscription based servers out there...some very cheap.

I do sympathize with you. It always sucks when you loose a service and the price stays the same.

ark_ader:
Wow gee wiz. Wooptidoo. 

Welcome to the real censor happy world.

Time to invest some pennies into a proxy news server.  I don't visit the news boards anymore, but the favourites are still there if you look.

I used to like alt.2600 but these days its a sewer for all kinds of trash and spam.

http://www.giganews.com/?gclid=CN-A5vnwxJQCFQEq1AodbXxiFw

You could also google free news servers.  Some work, but no binaries.

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