> On Mar 4, 2022, at 14:03 , Matthew Petach <mpet...@netflight.com> wrote: > > > > On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 12:55 PM Martin Hannigan <hanni...@gmail.com > <mailto:hanni...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > I would argue they don't have much of a choice: > > "The economic sanctions put in place as a result of the invasion and the > increasingly uncertain security situation make it impossible for Cogent to > continue to provide you with service." > > I would expect to see others follow suit if that is the case. > > > That's an interesting slope to slide along... > > I fully understand ISPs disconnecting customers for non-payment; we've > all had to do that at one point or another in our careers, I'm sure. > However, that's generally done *after* the customer has demonstrated > an inability or unwillingness to pay their bills. > > This doesn't seem to indicate that any existing invoices have gone > unpaid past their due date, but simply that there is *concern* that a > future bill might go unpaid due to the economic sanctions.
Sanctions cut both ways, and there is the possibility that Cogent’s legal team has said “Continue to do business with X in Russia puts you at risk of violating sanctions.” It’s not clear whether that’s the case or not, but I will say that if I were doing business there and my legal team said something like that, I’d seriously consider dropping the relevant customers quickly if it wouldn’t be a worse consequence than violating said sanctions (which seems unlikely). > I'm not sure that's a good precedent for a service provider to create; > "we may terminate your service at any point if we suspect that at an > unspecified time in the future, you may become unable to pay future > invoices." Yeah, I don’t think that’s what is happening here. Think of this more like businesses that were trading with Cuba during the Kennedy administration. All of that abruptly stopped pretty much one day. > If and when bills go unpaid, I fully support turning off customers. > I worry about the precedent of disconnecting based on suspicions > of what might happen in the future, however. What about “If and when it becomes clear that it’s illegal to keep those customers”? Owen
