Not satisfied with threatening to cut Yui Kee's leased line connection to the Internet, CPCNet also tried to stop Yui Kee communicating with the Press. On 14 December, Yui Kee received a letter from CPCNet's solicitors, claiming that Yui Kee's 23 November Press Release (titled 'Yui Kee Warns: CPCNet Puts Customers At Risk; OFTA Adopts a "Hands Off" Position') was "untrue, unfair and probably defamatory". Allan Dyer rejected the accusation, writing in a letter to CPCNet's solicitors on 15 December, "The press release is a true and fair representation of the situation on 23rd November, and of my opinions about the situation."
Although the solicitors wrote in the 14 December letter that CPCNet would consider immediate legal action if Yui Kee did not withdraw the press release, nothing further has been received on this matter. Dyer commented, "This looks like an intimidation tactic, they would be unwise to proceed because their claim has no validity."
CPCNet did, however, cut Yui Kee's leased line shortly after 18:00 on 31 December 2004. Yui Kee still regards this as outside of their contract terms with CPCNet, and a possible violation of the Telecommunications Ordinance. OFTA did suggest that Yui Kee should take the case to arbitration, but the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre can only become involved if the parties agree to arbitration. "We did ask CPCNet to go to arbitration, but they gave no response before terminating the connection. I guess that is a non-verbal response", explained Dyer.
However, if CPCNet's aim was to isolate Yui Kee, the attempt has failed, as receipt of this electronic newsletter demonstrates. "Our aim was to replace our leased line connection with multiple broadband connections, so we already had an alternate route in place", Dyer explained. Although connectivity was maintained, it was still necessary to update records at the Hong Kong Domain Name Registry, delete obsolete routes, and remove obsolete IP addresses from host configurations.
Although the impact on Yui Kee's communications was minimal, there is still the issue of the effect of CPCNet's terms and conditions on other customers. "Essentially, CPCNet's standard terms and conditions prohibit effective communications with anti-virus suppliers. Organisations should consider moving to other ISPs before they find themselves caught in a choice between sending an urgent sample by snail mail, or sending it quickly and having CPCNet terminate their connection", concluded Dyer.