French and Dutch hosting providers OVH and Severius refuse to voluntarily cooperate with requests from their government to take Wikileaks offline. Both hosting providers see Wikileaks as a regular customer and will continue to live up to the hosting agreement. Only a suspension order from the court could force them to take the site offline, according to the providers.

France

Since Amazon, at the request of the U.S. government, refuses to host Wikileaks.org any longer, the site has relocated its hosting activities to a dedicated server from French provider OVH in Roubaix. OVH however refuses to voluntarily respond to the French Government’s call, made through the Minister for Industry Eric Besson, to take the Wikileaks mirror offline, Webwereld reports.

To OVH Wikileaks is an ordinary customer who, like everyone else has the right to have its contact executed. OVH thereby refers to the European E-Commerce Directive, which demands that providers comply with a notice and takedown request from the legal authorities, yet not from any political power whatsoever. Though so far, attempts to get a court order to take Wikileaks down, are not very successful. A complaint to the Court of Lille was rejected and the Paris court has adjourned another case pending further arguments, reports Webwereld.

Netherlands

Dutch hosting provider Severius that hosts a part of the Wikileaks mirror, seems to have to same point of view on the matter as his French colleague. Melchior Aelmans, director of Severius, informed Webwereld that only an order from the Dutch examining magistrate can force him to take the site offline.

The spokesman for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service told Webwereld that he sees no reason for a notice and takedown request to Severius, or other hosting providers like XS4ALL and Byte who also host Wikileaks mirrors. "We’ve looked at it, but no illegal activities have been identified so there is no reason to take the sites offline," said the Public Prosecution Service’s spokesman.

Source: Webwereld