MobiTV Has A Totally Unsecured Feed, Threatens To Take Down HowardForums For Pointing That Out

from the under-what-law? dept

If you follow the mobile communications world, you read HowardForums. It is, by far, the most comprehensive set of forums for anything having to do with mobile phones and mobile operators and applications. It's a fantastic resource... and MobiTV is trying to shut it down. MobiTV, if you don't know, provides a (fee-based) TV streaming service for mobile phones. It has partnered with various mobile operators to allow them to stream TV to mobile phones (a subject we were just talking about, noting how few people really are willing to pay). For some totally unknown reason, it appears that MobiTV actually broadcasts its television streams totally out in the open on a URL that anyone can access.

Someone noted this at Howard Forums and posted the information. There is no hacking going on. There is no encryption broken. There is nothing illicit whatsoever. The feed is a public URL. However, it appears that MobiTV thinks that because it did not properly secure its own feeds and left it on a public URL that somehow Howard Forums has broken the law. In a series of emails, MobiTV's corporate counsel has threatened to take down HowardForums and have contacted his web host (and are threatening to contact his registrar). It's difficult to see what sort of claim they have here. The URL is a public site. They did not attempt to lock it down in any way.

Broadband Reports has more on this story and thanks to reader CQD for pointing this out. You would think that with all the attention Julius Baer got last week for a similar situation, MobiTV's execs and lawyers would recognize how the Streisand Effect might come back to bite them.

Filed Under: forums, howard forums, streisand effect, takedown, unsecured url
Companies: mobitv