Rogers patrons lose access to Usenet bulletin boards

Dwindling interest among factors Presence of child porn also cited

Rogers Cable is notifying subscribers to its high- speed Internet service that their access to Usenet bulletin boards, a popular hangout for music pirates and traders of child porn, will be shut down on Dec. 15. Company spokesperson Taanta Gupta said the notice will begin appearing in the bills of Rogers Yahoo customers this month. Founded in 1979, Usenet is an online network of more than 100,000 different newsgroups that began as an information exchange for scholars, techies and hobbyists. But after America Online began offering access to Usenet in the early 1990s, the network started to get flooded with spam and pornography.

While it still has its loyal users, dwindling interest in Usenet was part of the reason AOL —and now Rogers — decided to drop access to the network.

“ Usenet was one of the earliest forms of user discussion on the Internet, but today has largely been replaced by blogs, instant messaging, personal Web pages and other tools,” according to the Rogers website. “ As a result, fewer and fewer people are accessing Usenet.” Gupta said less than 3 per cent of subscribers — or under 30,000 — are Usenet users. She confirmed that part of the reason Rogers is discontinuing the service is because of its rampant use by traders of child porn. The company emphasized that customers who still want to read or post Usenet messages are still able do so through Google Groups or through a number of paid services on the Internet. Some Rogers Yahoo customers aren’t happy about the decision. “ I use it frequently, and from reading the (Usenet) groups dedicated to Rogers, a lot of other people do,” said Rogers’ customer Jim Greenwood, adding that Google Groups is limited and doesn’t provide many of the newsgroups that people use.

“ With this reduction in service comes no price drop, as they claim it was given free. But many people who use their services would disagree with their arguments.”

Rogers said services come and go as technology changes. “ It is reasonable to expect that new services will displace older (ones). On balance, the total package for Rogers Yahoo customers continues to improve in both scope and depth.”

While it’s estimated that fewer people are using Usenet, experts say the amount of data flowing through the network is on the rise because its serves as a popular place for trading digital music, movie files and software programs. Gupta said piracy concerns did not play a role in shutting down access to Usenet, adding that Rogers faced no pressure from the recording industry.