FYI: Verizon are jerks.... eliminating the .alt groups

I am a Verizon Online (DSL) subscriber and have just read their
announcement, quoted befow verbatim:-
================================================== ==============
Dear Verizon Online Customer,

As a Verizon Newsgroup service user, we wanted to let you know about
some important changes that we will soon be making to our Newsgroup
service.

On June 24, 2008, we will be modifying our Newsgroup offerings to only
offer groups in the Big-8 Newsgroup hierarchies, which are listed
below. The 0.verizon.* newsgroup hierarchy will also continue to be
available. Users will not be able to post or download from any other
newsgroups using our Newsgroup service.

comp.*
humanities.*
misc.*
news.*
rec.*
sci.*
soc.*
talk.*

More details regarding the Big 8 newsgroup hierarchies is available
at: http://www.big-8.org/.

This change will not affect your Internet access service. If you
would like to subscribe to newsgroups other than those we offer, you
will need to subscribe to a separate commercial news service. Please
note that your use of any such service is still subject to our Terms
of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

There are no changes required to your software, but you will need to
unsubscribe from all Newsgroups other than the Big 8 hierarchies and
the 0.verizon.* hierarchy noted above. The following link explains
how to subscribe and unsubscribe in Outlook Express:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171190

IMPORTANT: If you continue to subscribe to unsupported newsgroups, you
may experience poor computer performance and slow throughput speeds.
Failure to unsubscribe may also interfere with the functioning of the
Verizon network or use of the network by other Verizon users, which is
a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.

We appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to serve
you in the future.

Sincerely,

Verizon Online
================================================== ====

Since the only alt. groups to which I subscribe are computer/console
hardware-related, this is not particularly discomforting for me. There
are alternate forums for such discussions. However, I sympathise with
those who subscribe to many of the (non-porn) social groups. Verizon
could have easily implemented fiters for the few dozen "nasties"
(sex/porn, binaries, etc ) in the many thousands of alt. newsgroups.
A sledgehammer to crack a nut....

However, for me there is also the practical problem of replying to
postings that may also have been crossposted to alt. groups. To comply
fully with the "IMPORTANT" paragraph in Verizon's directive, I believe
I will have to manually check the reply-header of all my replies to
eliminate any reference to the alt. domain if present. Thanks Verizon
for nothing.

Verizon provides me a near fault-free service with no bandwidth caps
or erratic upload bandwidth, so I have no real inclination to change
ISP providers.

So, I say farewell to a couple of my favorite alt. groups unless
Verizon has a change of heart stimulated by pocket-book considerations
(which I doubt)

John Lewis