Tim Casey, Vice President of Marketing & Operations, International Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, LLC, issued a response today to earlier reports that wi-fi at its businesses were blocking LGBT websites:
Said Casey:
"At approximately 3:00pm on Thursday we were notified by a customer using our complementary wi-fi service that two specific sites catering to the LGBT community were blocked from access. Those sites included Pam’s House Blend and Towleroad. After learning of the issue, our technical team researched the situation and took immediate steps to unblock the sites that were brought to our attention. It is not, and has never been, the policy of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to block Internet content or websites from our customers or members of the LGBT community. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf subscribes to an OpenDNS platform that incorporates a peer review component which allows users to flag particular sites they deem inappropriate. In this case, a small amount of flags triggered the system and the sites in question were blocked automatically. No web-content filter is perfect, but we are grateful to the customers who quickly brought this to our attention for resolution. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf supports diversity on all levels and values the community members of the areas we operate in. Our goal in offering free wi-fi service is to open communication and exchange of information, not to block information."
We thank Casey for taking prompt action on this.
