Part of our efforts to learn and report about privacy, identity, malware, scams and other ill attentions on the internet involves becoming a user of various services. We also do so with complete transparency. disclosing our name and, wherever possible, creating a user account in the name of securesurfing or monitor.securesurfing.
This is not at all an automated process and requires manual effort of a real human being.
We also consider this activity to be a key measure in identity protection since by occupying the username account, it prevents others from impersonating our name.
Regardless, shortly after the Secure Surfing Organization posted the Warning About Canada.com we noticed that the email account secu...@canada.com was not functioning. A notice would present that the account was “on hold” with an instruction to contact support.
The full email exchange with the referenced Terms of Service link are reproduced below. In summary, canada.com asserts that the fact that we registered with the name of this organization rather than the name of an individual constitutes a breach of their terms of service because those terms bar use by any “commercial” entity which in their letter they define as including not-for profit.
This is of course silly game-playing that actually obstructs transparency for users and for canada.com itself. It will be a simple matter to create an account using an individual’s name and details to fulfill the exact same purposes as our securesurfing account would fulfill. It is not a commercial activity for a user to share information about what one learns on one service with the users of another service. So that is exactly what we will do.
The only difference will be that users of canada.com and canada.com itself will not know up front that the user is also a contributor to The Secure Surfing Organization. But canada.com will not escape monitoring and review by invoking a terms of service that clearly does not apply.
For your information we have many accounts with major services in the name of monitor.securesurfing and variations thereof, without any problem at all, including moni...@gmail.com and even secu...@journalist.com.
Here is the documentary record:
First e-mail
GPG Securely Signed by moni...@securesurfing.net
——- Original Message Follows ——-
From: “Monitor SecureSurfing” <moni...@securesurfing.net>
To: <emai...@canada.com>
Subject: Account on hold
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:42:12 -0600
You have placed our email account: secu...@canada.com on hold.
No instructions, errors or other guidance is provided other than to contact support.
Ergo, we’re contacting you.
=======================================
canada.com reply
From: emailsupport <emai...@canada.com>
To: =?utf-8?B?TW9uaXRvciBTZWN1cmVTdXJmaW5n?= <moni...@securesurfing.net>
Date: 18 Aug 2009 18:34:50 -0700
Subject: RE: Account on hold
Thank you for contacting canada.com email support.
We apologize for any delay in our response and we regret any inconvenience to you.
Your account was disabled due to a violation of our terms of service and it cannot be returned. These can be found at http://www2.canada.com/aboutus/termsofservice.html#9
Please remember that our service is meant for private and not commercial use [profit or non-profit].
Let us know if we can further assist you.
Victor L
Canada.com
Email Support
For more information please visit our help page: E-mail FAQ
===================
The included link pointed to Term 9 of the terms of service which lists activities that cannot be conducted using canada.com and NONE of which has The Secure Surfing Organization done or proposed to do. Term 9:
9. Commercial Use
No bulletin board, forum, chat room or other areas of the canada.com Sites may be used by you for any commercial purposes such as to conduct sales of goods and services of any kind. You must obtain our prior written consent to make commercial offers of any kind, whether by advertising, solicitations, links, or any other form of communication. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not resell or link to other sites for any commercial purpose whatsoever. We reserve the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending communication from the canada.com Sites and barring such violators from use of the canada.com Sites. We reserve the right to block access to canada.com Sites by any user known or reasonably believed to be utilizing automated means to process commercial uses (including sale of goods and services).
