Amazon Web ceases business with WikiLeaks

Washington, Dec 2: America's largest online retailer, Amazon.com has stopped hosting whistleblower website WikiLeaks from its Web servers after being contacted by a US Senator. WikiLeaks had turned to Amazon's Web services after it claimed that its previous Web host, a company in Sweden called Bahnhof, was hit by computer attacks.

When Amazon was questioned why company is providing wed host?, on Wednesday, Dec 2, Amazon informed the senator's staff that it had severed its ties with the organization.

The Seattle-based company said that, "it ended the relationship with WikiLeaks site in the last 24 hours because WikiLeaks was violating Amazon's terms of use," the Washington Post reports.

After the action taken by Amazon, Lieberman said: "I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on WikiLeaks previous publication of classified material."

Meanwhile, whistleblower website quickly sent out a response via its Twitter site, "If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books."

WikiLeaks has now moved its sites back to its servers in Sweden.

Earlier in October, WikiLeaks had released a package of almost 400,000 documents called the Iraq War Logs in coordination with the major commercial media organizations.

In July, WikiLeaks released Afghan War Diary, a compilation of more than 76,900 documents about the War in Afghanistan not previously available for public review.

In April, the group had posted video from a 2007 incident in which Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. forces, on a website called Collateral Murder.

ANI