Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Stephen Taylor explains how a political party leadership candidate in Canada managed to censor a website he didn't like:

Yesterday, a Joe Volpe parody site went up called YouthForVolpe.ca which lampooned the Liberal leadership candidate's drug money (ahem pharmaceutical donations) from children of Apotex execs. When Volpe gave back the money yesterday (CTV News called it "Volpe's volte-face"), the website went down. At the time, I thought that the designers had thought that it was irrelevant or that it had served its purpose, so they pulled it. It turns out that this is not the case.

Joe Volpe had the Canadian Internet Registration Authority sever the link from YouthForVolpe.ca to the server which hosted the website.

Canadian campaign finding laws do not allow contributions from corporations, but they do allow personal contributions of up to $5400. Mr. Volpe received the maximum contribution from several executives of Apotex, a drug manufacturer, as well as from their wives, and their children, including a 14 year old and 11 year old twins.When someone suggested that this might not be completely legal, he indicated that it was, and threatened then with legal action. Now that a few days have passed on the issue seems to have blow up in his face, he has decided to return the children's donations:

"I instructed my official agents to ensure that all contributions met that standard because that's what the Canadian public demands and that's what it will get with Joe Volpe," he said.

It took the Canadian public demanding it it for three days before he decided to stop threatening those Canadians with legal action and to do the right thing.Though he still seems to have a problem with parody and free speech.

This is an example of Notice and Takedown in action. Mr. Volpe didn't have to prove a thing. He was able, though the fear of legal action, to have a website taken down, stifling the free speech of others. And those people had no recourse.