In addition to selling books, Amazon does a nice side business hosting websites. WikiLeaks was paying for space on Amazon servers this week until the retailer sent the leakers packing. No comment so far from Amazon, but WikiLeaks, now hosted in Sweden, responded with a dig about “the land of the free.”

According to Computer World, WikiLeaks turned to Amazon in order to cope with ongoing denial-of-service attacks meant to shut down the site. — PZS

Computer World:

WikiLeaks moved to Amazon’s hosting service Monday, apparently as a defensive tactic to avoid or mitigate aggressive denial-of-service (DoS) attacks that took the site offline for several hours that day, and hammered it again yesterday.

According to Craig Labovitz, chief scientist at Arbor Networks, the DoS attacks continued throughout Wednesday morning.

Amazon’s hosting terms of service allow it to yank a site off its service without cause.

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