Panera Bread: Bad citizen of the internet

Panera Bread just can't stop getting into trouble. The company offers free wifi at its restaurants, which would seem to indicate a sort of getting-it-ness with regard to the internet.

But the company has also engaged in two practices abhorrent to any decent internet citizen:

1. COMMENT SPAM. It was the automated variety of this scourge that shut down comments on this blog (and many others). Panera Bread has apparently engaged in the equally noxious manual form of comment spam by creating an astroturf blog ("panerafan.blogspot.com," since taken down) and posting comments like the following on other blogs:

wow! i eat at Panera all the time and i have never had any problems like that - in fact i love it! they are always coming out with new flavors and the palce itself has such a great ambiance at any part of the day - free wi-fi is great - but the feeling of relaxation, fulfillment and comfort i get for my panera keep me going back for more! i love it so much that i actually just hunted down a Panera blog that you should check out!
http://panerafan.blogspot.com.

2. CENSORSHIP. Panera Bread proudly advertises its free wifi, but what they don't tell you that their version of the internet is a bit less like the one you're used to--and kinda more like China's. Panera uses an internet censorship service (similar to this one) to block sites in categories that it conveniently has already decided you don't want to look at.

You may be interested to know that Panera Bread's censorship service has determined that the site for the The God Who Wasn't There is too dangerous to view while consuming Panera-based sandwiches. I mean, what if you were innocently surfing, discovered that there was a documentary alleging that religion contains some serious logical flaws, and that caused you to choke on your lunch? Never fear--Panera is protecting you.

Panera Bread has also blocked the site for the extremely dangerous Universists, a group of civic-minded folks who responded to 9-11 by forming an initiative to replace radical fundamentalism with rational thought.

Both The God Who Wasn't There and the Universist sites are banned because they are in Panera's Cult/Occult category. Perhaps the Panera censors are a wee bit overzealous?

Well, no. Actually they're apparently just incompetent. As Universist founder Ford Vox points out over at the Universists' message board, the censorship service does not block www.wicca.org, an actual "occult" site (and an excellent place to meet girls).

Contact:

Panera Bread

Sonic Wall

Hot Wicca Girls