I'm curious if the blogger would ask the same of Google? A quick search shows that Google has about 334,000 pages from the site in question in its cache. Would the blogger suggest that Google should be required not to index this website?
It's a faulty analogy IMO. Cloudflare chooses to let this company pay CloudFare for services provided. It is 100% CF's choice as to whether they accept this person/company as a paying customer. Google isn't asking for money for their index. There's a massive difference there. In one case, the paying customer agrees to follow CF's TOS. In the other case, Google agrees to follow the site's robots.txt and meta tags (which operate almost as a proxy for a TOS).
No, nor would it be right for us to monitor the content that flows through our network and make determinations on what is and what is not politically appropriate. Frankly, that would be creepy.
This reads as, "We don't have any filters whatsoever - anyone can be a paying customer and, as long as they pay their bill, we'll let them use our services no matter what." That's just disingenuous - no company operates that way. Take, for example, a case where Group A uses a CF-hosted site to attack Group B. Group B complains to CF - does CF take the same stance? I doubt their lawyers would approve. I suppose CF could now backtrack and say, "See that line where we say 'politically appropriate' - we're really talking about censoring people, not about copyright/attacks/etc." If that's the case, they need to take this post down and have a re-write in which they make it clear what they mean.
Or what about DMCA takedown notices? Is CF's stance just to thumb their nose at them and say, "Nope - we aren't even going to investigate."?
What about pirate sites - is CF saying, "We don't want to know. We're just closing our eyes and ears and just letting whatever happens happen." Bull#%*^&
As the author repeats several times, they are not a hosting platform. They're more of a cache. They're like a network through which web sites hosted on other platforms can travel.
In a court of law in the situations I provided, would the difference you are trying to argue (a semantic difference IMO) be satisfactory to a judge such that the judge would eliminate CF from a lawsuit? Take your average judge - is "They're more of a cache" as an argument going to be enough to convince him/her to rule for CF? I think the answer is no. As with any case, "if you can find a sympathetic judge, you can win" so sure - there are judges who will choose to see a difference. But who wants to build a business strategy based on finding a sympathetic judge if/when a major problem occurs?
It's a faulty analogy IMO. Cloudflare chooses to let this company pay CloudFare for services provided. It is 100% CF's choice as to whether they accept this person/company as a paying customer. Google isn't asking for money for their index. There's a massive difference there. In one case, the paying customer agrees to follow CF's TOS. In the other case, Google agrees to follow the site's robots.txt and meta tags (which operate almost as a proxy for a TOS).
No, nor would it be right for us to monitor the content that flows through our network and make determinations on what is and what is not politically appropriate. Frankly, that would be creepy.
This reads as, "We don't have any filters whatsoever - anyone can be a paying customer and, as long as they pay their bill, we'll let them use our services no matter what." That's just disingenuous - no company operates that way. Take, for example, a case where Group A uses a CF-hosted site to attack Group B. Group B complains to CF - does CF take the same stance? I doubt their lawyers would approve. I suppose CF could now backtrack and say, "See that line where we say 'politically appropriate' - we're really talking about censoring people, not about copyright/attacks/etc." If that's the case, they need to take this post down and have a re-write in which they make it clear what they mean.
Or what about DMCA takedown notices? Is CF's stance just to thumb their nose at them and say, "Nope - we aren't even going to investigate."?
What about pirate sites - is CF saying, "We don't want to know. We're just closing our eyes and ears and just letting whatever happens happen." Bull#%*^&
Perplexing.