Communications Law
Verizon Does About Face on Abortion-Rights Campaign
Posted Sep 27, 2007, 09:00 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Updated: Last week Verizon Wireless turned down a request by an abortion-rights group for a text message program, igniting debate over whether mobile companies should be able to censor messages.
Today the company reversed itself, the New York Times reports. The original decision was a "mistake," according to Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. “It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy.”
Verizon told Naral Pro-Choice America last week that it doesn’t accept programs seeking to promote an agenda that “may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” The program would allow customers to sign up for text messages from the group by sending a message to a five-digit number.
Laws bar phone companies from interfering with voice transmissions on phone lines, but they don’t apply to private companies that provide text messages. Some legal experts were troubled by Verizon’s original decision.
“The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling,” University of Michigan law professor Susan Crawford told the newspaper.
Originally posted 9-27-2007 at 09:32 AM.
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