RoadRunner Co-Opting "Organization" Headers

Dusty Rhodes writes: "AOL-Time Warner cable Internet Provider RoadRunner has begun co-opting the 'Organization' line of Usenet headers, replacing whatever information a user enters with 'Organization: Road Runner - (location).' All RoadRunner customers nationwide, including business customers, have had their organization identity hijacked with no disclosure whatsoever, much less an opt-in or even an opt-out. Nothing in their TOS or AUP. Nada."

Comments

Re:They are your ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I play on the slippery slope after you're done with it?

Usenet Fields

[JabbaKosh]

I wonder how RoadRunner would feel if some unscrupulous person put Roadrunners email addresses in their reply fields for the spambots to harvest? Gee, I hope no one does that. That would be just awful. Roadrunner receiving tons of unsolicited mail because someone changed some information that they were not asked to. The horror...the horror....

Re:So?

[Waffle Iron]

And I don't really care how much RoadRunner screws with their customers, as long as they make money and build my retirement fund for me.

Unfortunately for you, AOL/TW's brilliant scheme to pad your retirement account by manipulating usenet headers has failed miserably. Last quarter, they posted the largest net loss in U.S. history ($54 billion).

Last week they announced that the SMTP and NNTP Header Development Division will be axed to save costs; this is expected to result in massive layoffs.

How to strike back

[eschasi]

If this were happening to me, I'd change my netnews .sigfile to read
--
If the Organization line on this post says 'RoadRunner', then the opinions expressed here are the official opinions of 'RoadRunner'. They put their name on them, they must approve.

Easy solution

[Blue Neon Head]

All concerned RoadRunner customers should change their organization name to "is a sh*tty ISP."

Nice of them to assume liability

[sam_handelman]

I think it's real sporting of them. By identifying themselves as the organization responsible for the messages (not mereley the source of the messages), do they not open themselves to legal action? Shielding their customers, who are small-fry (anything other than AOL/TW, including most countries) by definition.

Seriously, this has all the hallmarks of (rather clever) disgruntled employee sabotage. How much attention do you think the higher-ups at rr even pay to their UseNET service? How closely do you think it is monitered? I'm betting very little and not-at-all. It could be weeks before they really notice/understand, even now.

If I still had UseNET flamewars^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussions, I'd be really pissed; I have roadrunner.