Staff writers

Whirlpool is increasingly becoming the target of legal threats by ISPs attempting to control discussion of their services.

Last week, Whirlpool was threatened with being taken to court over a post by a user that linked to a document on public record at the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) website.

Whirlpool has traditionally followed a guiding principle of conservative response to legal threats, believing that with reasoned argument, time and perspective, virtually all issues can be sorted out amicably.

Unfortunately, while this approach has allowed all legal threats to be resolved, it hasn't stemmed the flow of new threats from ISPs who would rather try to steamroll their point of view onto users than participate in reasoned discussion.

Whirlpool advises ISPs that upon receipt of legal threats, we will immediately take some or all of the following actions:

• Cancellation of special account privileges such as moderation rights or "ISP representative" status
• Suspension or cancellation of accounts for representatives from that ISP
• Publication of a news story summarising the legal threats, including who has made them, and their contact details
• A permanent highlighted warning at the top of an ISP's Broadband Choice page detailing the legal threat
• Removal of the ISP from Broadband Choice altogether
• Freezing discussion forums dedicated to the ISP concerned
• Removing an ISP's dedicated discussion forum and combining posts back into a generic forum
• As a last resort, all discussion about the ISP may be banned on Whirlpool

However, these changes will not affect the vast majority of ISPs that conduct themselves in a professional and polite manner, answering questions and responding to criticism from customers with aplomb and dignity.

Such ISPs realise that engaging with customers and building long term relationships can have enormously positive long-term effects on their customer numbers. A number of ISPs have grown from being relatively small players to being major forces in the Australian industry, largely thanks to their willingness to work directly and openly with customers on Whirlpool.

It's a tragedy to see small, aggressive ISPs trying to manipulate the system to reap the benefits of free exposure to customers, industry and media provided by Whirlpool and Broadband Choice, without being prepared to accept and participate in open discussion.

Whirlpool will continue to respond to reasonable, polite requests from ISP representatives querying user posts that are inappropriate or potentially defamatory. However, today marks the day where we make clear that Whirlpool will no longer respond conservatively to legal threats by those that seek to bully their point of view or extract money from a non-profit organisation.