ORC backs OVH in the on going Wikileaks hosting saga
ORC BENELUX HQ – Seeings how we’ve been getting quite a bit of questions from the public and press regarding the information about Wikileaks being hosted on the same network and potentially even in the same data-center as Operation Reality by OVH in Roubaix France, we figured we would make a brief public post outlining our position on this matter in order to end any speculation.
As long time customers of OVH for our dedicated server hosting needs (going on several years now), ORC would like to put to rest any concerns or rumors about Operation Reality potentially dropping OVH specifically over the issue of OVH considering to drop legal paying customers of their services solely due to pressure received by politicians or private interests outside the scope of French law because of political or ideological reasoning.
We respect OVH’s judicious decision to not simply cave to political or private pressure as many American companies (Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, etc) had done so easily just hours earlier by ousting Wikileaks from their servers/services without referring to any legal justification under American law.
Octave Klaba, the director and founder of OVH basically made it clear they were neither for nor against the site and would follow the French Justice’s ruling on the matter and not that of simple politicians or private lobbyists making demands or threats on political or ideological grounds through back channels. ORC applauds this decision and stance. We would expect nothing less from a legally responsible company such as OVH. Had this not been the case or should this policy in effect ever change, ORC might indeed have to consider other hosting providers, however for now, we fully support OVH’s stance on the matter and their legal responsibility with regards to honoring their existing customer’s contracts as applicable under French law despite external pressure.
For more information please refer to following threads posted by Octave on the OVH Forums.
http://forum.ovh.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4916 (ENG)
http://forums.ovh.com/showthread.php?t=65710 (FR)
If you are a member of ORC you may also be interested in the on going discussion thread about this topic in the ORC Forums @ http://operationreality.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6563
Yours truly,
/ORC Staff
Thanks for the clarification
sounds perfectly reasonable to me
Long live OVH!
I hear the French government is still trying to build a case against it to bring to the courts, is this true?
@Samffer
Sounds likely
glad to hear it
To ORC staff,
The impression I get from reading your post is that the ORC staff is in support of OVH’s buisness partnership with Wikileaks who’s engaging in illegal activities against the USA. Your statement also sends a feeling of a hatred for the USA by making clear the companies that withdrew support to Wikileaks where “American companies,” instead of just saying Amazon,PayPal, Visa, ect.. I am not sure why ORC would want to make this distinction, unless to draw support from others that also have a disagreemnet with the USA.
Firstly, the American companies did not “simply cave to political or private pressure,” as you stated. They did so with a clear understanding that they no longer wanted to do buisness with Wikileaks because they see it as an attack on their country that they love and support. It’s a form of protesting. These “American companies” do not have to “refer to any legal justification under American law,” as you stated. Companies have the right to not do business with whomever they chose. Why would an American company want to do business with anyone that wishes harm against it’s Government or citizens?
Make no mistake, Wikileaks illegally obtained classified documents that are the property of the United States, for the sole purpose to inflict harm by creating anger and distrust against the Government and it’s citizens. For there are those out there that will use such information as a tool to justify any attack and to gather support for their hatred towards America.
Wikileaks is no different from a person who has knowingly accepted stolen goods from a thief. Both parties are engaging in illegal activity and need to be brought to justice. Don’t be confused thinking that this is a case of freedom of speech as some will argue. Wikileaks does not have the right to publish stolen documents no more than someone has the right to publish a stolen diary that was given to them.
OVH has made a choice to stand with Wikileak’s criminal activities by providing them with a means to expose Governmental documents for the purpose to create hatred against America. That’s what it is. I would have been happy with ORC’s statement to have said that you remain neutral and will not take a side on the whole issue. But you not only took a side, you also give support. I do not agree with ORC’s position on this matter and I hope others will express the same.
@An American
Hey thanks for your response. As a member of the ORC Staff I can assure you ORC is NOT taking sides with Wikileaks or even commenting on the specifics of the legality per jurisdiction in terms of what information they may be publishing, we’ll leave that to the experts in the relevant judicial systems. What we are saying is we are taking sides with and agree with OVH’s position on the matter, that this is a matter for the courts and justice systems to decide and NOT politicians or private interests to influence and lobby whether for or against. Although I suppose it is true what you say that from a legal perspective a business is free to decide whether or not they want to conduct business with a particular customer if under no contractual obligations (I’m not sure what the contractual agreements were with regards to the American companies and Wikileaks at the time they were dropped). We (ORC) however, remain completely neutral in regards to Wikileaks just like OVH. This was the point we were trying to get across, we are neither for nor against Wikileaks, we were solely commenting on the matter of OVH legally respecting a contractual obligation with a paying customer by which they are technically legally obliged to honor. If you pay for a service, you expect to receive the service and not have it revoked for arbitrary reasons no matter whether they are believed reasonable or not unless explicitly prescribed by law under a breech of service in the contractual agreement. In our opinion, these types of matters should be handled through the correct corridors of legal recourse. As they stated, if OVH receives a legal order from a French court to remove the customer from their services they will. ORC cannot argue with this position. Also, in regards to making it sound as if we were calling out “Americans” when we stated “American companies”, trust me we realize those companies mentioned are very international in scope but it must be noted all are headquartered in the USA and thus subject to the US government far more directly then OVH HQ’d in France. We very much appreciate your feedback though, sorry for any confusion on the matter. Best regards!
@An_American acording to wikipedia WikiLeaks is an (award wining) international new media non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and news leaks.
As such they stand between “Deep Throats” and Newspapers. Not surprisingly, Deep Troat volonteer are more often american than chinese or north korean. The rule of law in any democracy should protect us from the arbitrary will of government and large companies like amazon and master card. The one who stole a secret he was supposed to protect surely failed and is a traitor.
On the other hand Wikileaks are just doing their job, just like any other news media.
@An American
I think you completely missed the point the ORC staff was trying to get across here. They clearly stated that they were not for or against wikileaks. I think they just want to support OVH in the whole wikileaks matter. Maybe because you are so patriotic you cannot see it from another perspective. But it’s okay I am glad the ORC staff cleared this issue up for me, as myself had some questions aswell about ORC and wikileaks.
ORC keep up the good work and I’d love to see some more news posts up here!
Greetings from Holland