Download: [Internet Censorship] Mozilla Questions US Department of Homeland Security!

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

[Internet Censorship] Mozilla Questions US Department of Homeland Security!

[Internet Censorship] Mozilla Questions US Department of Homeland Security!: "

It is well-known fact that Department of Homeland Security in the US, seize certain domains for copyright infringement.

The controversy has been sometimes these domains are shutdown without notice to the owners.

Mozilla’s was recently asked to remove MafiaaFire, a Firefox add-on which is mainly a redirection add-on. It supposedly un-censors the domains which were taken down illegally.

Mozilla decided that before removing the add-on they wanted their own set of questions answered by Homeland Security in US.

Why were these websites shutdown?

The common reason believed to have been that the websites were infringing on copyright. Typically the suspicions were about online piracy of copyright content.

Many websites which were taken down, still have their status in limbo. That means, that a court order has not ruled against it as illegal and hence the sites ideally should not be shutdown.

Why Mozilla is taking a stand?

Mozilla is taking a stand against this sort of request to remove a add-on probably to not allow it to become a precedent. There have always been fears of internet censorship when governments have tried to remove content from the internet. Mozilla probably standing up for their add-on developers is a better idea than to quickly comply with requests.

On the other hand, I could not see the MafiaaFire extension in the Chrome webstore. The Chrome version can be downloaded directly from MafiaaFire’s own domain.

What are your views? Is Mozilla taking the right stand? Do drop in your comments.

Link: Mozilla’s Questions to Dept of Homeland Security in US