Muzzling Britain's bloggers

There's no doubt about the big story on the British blogosphere at the moment. A whole tranche of websites have disappeared in response to legal threats by Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

Craig Murray and Tim Ireland's Bloggerheads have had the plug pulled by their hosting company. In the process a number of blogs hosted on Ireland's server have also gone down, including Boris Johnson and Bob Piper.

There is something of a debate on Pickled Politics over whether US hosting is a defence against this kind of thing. In one comment, Thomas Dunsmore of Pitchinvasion.net reports that he was approached by Usmanov's lawyers despite having US hosting. It's not clear, however, if his hosts were approached directly or whether they took any action as a result.