Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Blogger loses court case and you do, too

Former Kentucky blogger/media darling Mark Nickolas didn't mention the settlement of his blog blocking lawsuit on his new blog. After reading the settlement agreement, the reason for this becomes clear.

He lost the case, spin from a misleading press release notwithstanding.

From the settlement agreement:
"3. The Commonwealth Office of Technology employs software to filter internet
usage on state-owned computers. This software provides users the ability to block internet site categories predefined by the vendor. As part of its internet filtering policy, the previous named defendants chose to block several categories, one of which included “newsgroups/blogs.”
“Newsgroups/blogs” are defined by the vendor as containing “Web sites that enable the sharing of information such as on a bulletin board. Includes Web logs (‘blogs’) and guest book servers as well.”
4. Mr. Nickolas’s websites, bluegrassreport.org and bluegrassreport.com, are
categorized as “newsgroups/blogs” and therefore users of state computers were blocked from gaining access to them."

And you will be glad to see that the pro bono legal work provided by Ralph Nader cost the taxpayers of Kentucky $10,000.