Free ISPs surrender

(Upstart) Do you know where you were when the free ISP model died?

Yesterday Juno Online Services released a statement responding to a patent lawsuit filed against it by its competitor, NetZero. What’s interesting about the statement is that it seems to not only seek distance between Juno and the lawsuit but also between Juno and free ISPs in general. The company states, “About two-thirds of Juno's revenues are currently derived from subscriptions to its billable premium services, while the remaining third comes from various forms of advertising and e-commerce, only a small part of which is based on the floating ad banner shown to users of our free basic service.” In other words, “We’re not with these people!”

And who wants to be known as a free ISP, anyway? Considering the seeming fatwa against free ISPs these days and the categorical slaughter of them over the past several weeks, free ISPs have become telecom’s answer to “Gorillas in the Mist.”

FreeInet filed for bankruptcy in October, selling its assets to its main competitor. Spinway.com and 1stUp went out of business in early December. Millioneyes.com, the optimistically named private-label free ISP, went out of business in mid-November, forcing customers such as freeDEM.com—the free Internet service offered by the Democratic party—to discontinue service (as if Democrats hadn’t suffered enough this winter, what with losing the White House and all ). And in the wake of it all, 1st-free-isps.com—a site that posts news and customer information about free ISPs—became so desperate in its attempts to find new ways to describe the disaster that it actually ran the headline “Free ISPs go boom.”

Shortly before Christmas, NetZero, the leader and innovator of the free Internet model, released a statement delusionally claiming it was “keep[ing] the Internet free for everyone” by initiating charges toward any customers who use the Internet more than 40 hours in a month. The next day, Bluelight.com (which had inherited Spinway’s non-paying customers) announced it was restricting its free Internet service to 25 hours per month.

Throughout the holidays, the owners of pay-for ISPs, who have been sticking pins into voodoo dolls of NetZero CEO Mark Goldston for two years, derisively debated when the exact moment was that the free Internet model died. If their own predicaments weren’t so bleak, they might even be able to enjoy the victory.

Senior Writer Ed Gubbins has spent the last two years sticking pins into voodoo dolls of his mortal enemy, “Family Circus” creator Bil Keane. Drop him a line at ed_gubbins@intertec.com.