Amazon Web Services (AWS) has come up with an explanation on why they kicked WikiLeaks off its servers after a day of the event. Amazon claims that it has stopped providing service to WikiLeaks as it was breaking rules designed to ensure websites use their own content and that it won’t injure others. Amazon in a blog post explained how the decision was their own and, not taken due to the pressure from the U.S. government. Amazon says, the terms of service clause that was in clear violation by WikiLeaks was:

…you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.

The site says, "WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content." Amazon’s blog post implies that a few controversial data would have been fine but 250,000 was too much to ignore and hence the harsh action.

…hundreds of thousands of customers storing all kinds of data on AWS. Some of this data is controversial, and that’s perfectly fine. But, when companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn’t rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won’t injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere.

I wanted to share an Al Jazeera TV inside story on Julian Assange too (video):