Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Big Web

Josh Marshall | December 1, 2010, 2:19PM

Amazon has terminated the account of Wikileaks and apparently the site has been down most of the day. Joe Lieberman has issued a statement on Amazon's decision. Amazon has not commented directly on what happened to Wikileaks account. But they appear to have told Lieberman -- or that's the clear import of Lieberman's statement -- that they unilaterally terminated the account.

[Update: Wikileaks has reportedly moved the documents back to its original Swedish hosting service, though that is unconfirmed. They seem to be back up online. -- 3:00 pm.]

Most consumers aren't aware of this. But in addition to the Amazon retailer you know, Amazon has also become a big, big player in the 'cloud' web hosting market. I assume they're the largest. But I do not know that last point for certain. Regardless, they're a huge player in the market. A few parts of TPM, though not the whole site, is hosted in the Amazon cloud.

When I'd heard that Amazon had agreed to host Wikileaks I was frankly surprised given all the fish a big corporation like Amazon has to fry with the federal government.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/12/big_web.php?ref=fpblg