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Have You Really Read Your ISP's TOS?
NewtonsLaw writes "XTRA, New Zealand's largest ISP is in the process of losing customers in droves after it announced its new Terms of Service which seek to claim rights over customers intellectual property (see the Slashdot discussion). Now, if that wasn't enough, Aardvark Daily reports that the ISP is also banning its users from saying bad things (anything 'detrimental to our reputation or to our brand') about it. I wonder how many slashdotters have actually read their own ISPs' terms of service in detail? Is this type of IP-grab and clampdown on free speech is unique to Xtra or is it slowly pervading the whole industry, right across the globe?" Read on for Xtra's amendments to the original IP-grab terms, though.
Reader THX1138 points out that "After the very recent story on Xtra (New Zealand's version of AOL) they changed the IP section to include 'Xtra does not claim ownership of any content or material you provide or make available through the Services. However...' at the start and 'in each case for the limited purposes for which you provided or made the Customer Materials available or to enable us and our suppliers to provide the Services.' at the end."
With the legalese stripped out, they say: We're not responsible for what you do. Don't do anything illegal under local, state, or federal law. Don't use up enough processor time on the shell box that other customers can't. Don't screw with the network.
If they give up common carrier status and start controlling and owning everything on their network, does this mean that if terrorist sites or kiddie porn appear on their network, their CEO and board of directors will be habeas corpused off to Cuba? Or whatever the equivalent thing that New Zealand does to people they don't like.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Obviously what's needed is contract regulation. There are few things you can't sign away now... life, limb, that sort of thing. Clearly signing away rights to IP is equally incompatible with our way of life.
...they can have my slashdot posts!
:p
Nothing intellectual there, really
What's your GCNSEQNO?
"Have you ever really read your ISP's TOS?"
Nope. Being 19 and not having a good job really sucks, especially with the knowledge and learning curve I have (I ended up teaching the computer classes my last year in high school), but at least I get to live with my parents and leach off of their paid internet access.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
is do work at my own ISP - so i doesn't have this problem :)
Is this type of IP-grab and clampdown on free speech is unique to Xtra or is it slowly pervading the whole industry, right across the globe?
At what point did free speech become global?
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
In my country customers have still some rights and there is also a freedom of speech.
Thus I can critize my ISP and have rights for all my creation no matter what TOS says.
I live in the Portland/Metro area of Oregon and I *love* my ISP (http://www.easystreet.com).
They are geek-friendly. They encourage limited sharing of your DSL bandwidth (I mean, as long as you lock it down with a password so not every yahoo driving buy can use it) and offer a lot toward the wireless community in Oregon.
Not to mention, they have great policies about allowing you to run non-commercial web and email servers (which is important for me since I do a lot of small testing stuff) and are staffed by a lot of good people (some I've worked with before in a former life).
Everything you could want in an ISP, they are. I have never had a problem with them. Period. They are always friendly, helpful, have 24x7 support. Even their second and third tier tech guys will get paged and call you back in the middle of the night if you are experiencing a severe problem.
They also have people familiar in supporting non-windows OSes (mac, linux, etc) and offere their own tutorials for home networking.
Overall they are very cheap (compared to cable at least - especially if you want static IPs. For the cost of one static IP with Comcast, you can get eight here).
I've been with them for three years and since I work from home, I make HEAVY use of the DSL service. Qwest provides the actual line and I've only had two or three issues in all three years, total. One was due to a hardware problem at the PO-LOC (Qwest problem, obviously), one was due to the ISPs backbone getting torched for a few hours and another was up in the air - but eventually fixed itself.
I would say that I have had approximately two days of down time in these three years. Remarkably good for all the benifits you get.
This is the next big thing for corporations to do, is to attempt control the content that flows over "their" wires. Fortunately governments have failed to control encryption (intentionally? adjust aluminum hat if you think so, but maybe) so this might not be as ominous as it first appears. But if the courts cooperate (i.e. subpoena your key) then ... hilarity may ensue.
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
When I signed up for my ISP, I just called a number out of the phone book. After giving them my CC number, they just gave me a username and account... They never mailed me anything, I've never read any TOS, nor did they tell me to read anything over the phone... Does this mean that I've agreed to something? Could I have sold my soul to them without ever actually saying or signing anything?
I used to work for an ISP and even then I didn't know the TOS!
KARMA TAG! You're it.
I haven't read my TOS yet, but I can tell you that my ISP is a total piece of sh
Does anyone have a report where they have actually followed through with the terms and taken someone to court or terminated their connection because of this?
__________
cheap web site hosting for vanity domains.
Speaking of insane "agreements"....
The other day I purchased some domain space and dusted off my old domain name I had sitting around for about a year. When I went to change my DNS records via netsol, this is what I got:
"It's appears you haven't agreed to our new revised terms of service. You must do so before you proceed."
So, before agreeing to something I haven't even seen, I went and checked it out. HOLY JESUS -- The thing had to have been about 300 pages long. Besides being soaked in legal double talk, the thing was straight up unreadable in size. This is not service agreement, it's a freaking tome! Needless to say, while I tried to read it, it was all too much and I just agreed to it in the end. I mean, I just need to change a DNS record, not spend 2 days trying to digest the most uninteresting thing ever written. Besides, what if I saw something totally evil in there anyway? Chances are, I would have agreed. What am I going to do, let my domain name go to waste? I already payed for it. Shenanigans!
It's a sad state of affairs. Shouldn't there be some sort of limit on the length of a TOS agreement? It reminds me of the old cartoons where somebody would pull out some insane contract with a library of congress's worth of text on the bottom that could only be read with a microscope.
"The Wright brothers were the first to fly with a heavier-than-air machine, but boy did they have a lousy plane"
Anybody who stays with this ISP has no respect for their own free speech or privacy. I would write some intellectual property about how bad my ISP sucks for thier intellectual property rules. That is some irony for ya.
CenturyTel didn't send me anything like that for DSL service, and there isn't a copy on their website, although they do have the info for dial-up service online. Maybe ignorance is bliss?
Here is a bit of insight from a New Zealand resident. Xtra is actually an internet branch of Telecom New Zealand. Telecom NZ has been a monopoly here for a very long time, right untill a few years ago (about 4 years, approx.) a weak competition arrived in form of Clear. Weak, because Telecom owns the cabling throughout the country... Then australian Telstra came in, merged with clear and put their own cabling. Anyway, to cut it shorter: Xtra has always been obnoxious towards their customers, since there wasn't much choice in terms of decent internet service. However nowdays if they keep on going like that - they ARE going to loose big time, cause there are other ISPs available that do not depend on Telecoms bandwidth.
Before today, I'd only given the TOS a cursory glance, and I found that I am regularly in breach of a couple of the terms:
I don't really care too much, though, because it's only a dial-up connection, so the connection is inherently throttled...
Aardvark Daily reports that the ISP is also banning its users from saying bad things
how do they know what you say? spyware must be getting awfully advanced, I mean, they can moniter what you type, but...
My local ISP just started to roll out DSL. Our current service is 56k dialup limited to 90 hours per month. We pay about $30 for that.
The new DSL is 1.5mbps "best effort". They have not mentioned any download caps, but they will probably be on the way soon. The worst part of the TOS is the restriction on NAT/PAT.
They say that they can detect how many computers are on a network. For each computer, you have to pay an additional $60 for the exact same bandwidth. They don't even give you another modem for the extra $60.
Anyway, how do you think they are detecting NAT/PAT? Is there any way to stop this detection? I had planned on running Gentoo or *BSD as a firewall, but paying more money for the exact same thing seems harsh to me.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I've always wondered though, how can companies actually make clicking on an "OK" button legally binding? No witnesses, no signature, nothing. Although the best one I ever saw was "By opening this package, you agree to the terms and conditions contained within."
If they claim ownership of the IP, they become instant targets of the RIAA and BSA. They are no longer a communication carrier.
This could backfire on them.
The truth shall set you free!
I have read my ISPs TOS and it's pretty scary. They site laws under the 1984 "Cabel Act" and Electronic Communications Policy Act of 1998 (ECPA), that basically say that they can monitor everything I do. They can collect the following types of personally identifiable information name, phone #s, home and work addresses, SSN, and credit card #s, billing, payment, damage, security deposits, maintenance and repairs, and # of PCs and configuration. Also under the Cable Act they may collect personally identifiableinformation without your consent, and they can disclose all this information to anyone without your permission. Under the ECPA they can monitor all your communications. And the time that they can retain this personally identifiable information is as long as they want.
5.6 The Customer warrants that:- 5.6.1 it shall not transmit or receive live audio or video across the Supplier's Network or use the Services for any application which in the Supplier's opinion results in an unreasonable demand on the bandwidth;
I break these most weekends :(
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
I didn't read the TOS, but I used it as toilet paper.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
to /. is fine. But why do you never admit to it? Are you afraid the editors might reject your articles as too much self promotion. Or is this just a lame attempt to up your profile. Do tell...
One example worked well, even if it lacked much original thought.
Anonymous - oh the irony...
ISPs change-hands so often here, it's hard to keep up. When my ISP spontaneously became Comcast one month, I asked them to send me a new TOS. They said that their TOS was the same as AT&T's, but have refused to provide them. Am I bound to something they won't give me?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
So basically what they are saying is that I can't even have an opinion. If I really wanted to just get round it then I would either connect via another ISP, unless they are a total monopoly or use a service such as Cotse
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I have now.
"Don't worry, it's not loaded." --Terry Kath
I was proud to be the recipiant of a letter from my ISP informing me that I was among the "Top 50 Users."
I looked down further to see what I had won but sadly they just wanted to double my yearly fee. I was like "whoa." So I called them and asked what kind of plan it was I signed up for. They said that since I was in the top 50 I would have to pay more or move to DSL (and then pay more). Well I was all thinking maybe you know, this dsl sounds pretty nice, pretty nice But sadly it will not be available in my area "until ever." As the rep explained. So I looked at my statement which said I signed up for something called "Unlimited 56k Dialup Access*" The asterix said something about the 56k not really being capable of going that fast. So I asked the rep what Unlimited means. He said it means up to a point, I fired back like umm you mean "with bounds"? He said no not really.
The trouble was this overworked billing bloak didn't know what his company was advertising. He explained that if my modem stays connected for more than 7 hours a day it causes damage to their modems. Needless to say that it crap for crap. So then he said it didn't do damage but it disallowed other users to dial up. But that;s not even in the TOS I explained.
Dunt dun DUNNNN- The TOS the Terms Of Service- or Talk Of dirty rotten Shist depending on which end of the phone you're on. So he says he'll show me where. 1 minute later I'm on hold. 8 Minutes later he says it's the limited bandwidth clause section 6, which I hapeened to be very farmiliar with. I explained to him the perils of dialup and how real it was ABSOLUTLY IMPOSSIBLE to consume any significant amount of bandwidth on a 56k dialup, gee_willicars them city folk-a jus duna untersand!
He agreed. I asked for the Manger and he said the only person above him was the CEO who was needless to say "Out to Lunch" or if you're on the other end of the phone holy crap I'd better cover my ass.
Well it ended up this way, I called back and asked for Susan, the CEO 8 times one day an hour apart, but she was out to lunch from 9 till 5. I though about driving over there and looking for the overweight broad (See I know shes overweight because she's always eating lunch) but since I'm just a really really lazy person I just canned my service there and started an account at Lanset who despite having a really awful website and horrid DNS servers have been pretty good to me with 60 MB free hosting, no setup fees $96/year and I can have my whole lan sharing the connection legally.
Ok bye. and oh yeah to answer the question I did read the TOS before purchases from both ISP's. InReach just eats.
Who is this "Poster" guy and why does he own all of my comments?!?
To my knowledge there is no way in heck they can detect another computer behind a Nat. It sounds like BS or a scare tactic. Absolutely ridiculous.
While I on the subject of crappy ISP's I don't understand what is the point of all these conditions. I have friends that work for a fairly large (state-wide), very profitable, ISP that has none of this. Heck they even allow you to resell the service if you so desire. As they say, as long as they make money why should they care? As they see it these restrictive terms drive people directly to them. For instance they started reselling Time Warner's Cable service. TW prohibits Web Servers and such but they do not. Result - alot of customers switching over to them because of the less restrictive terms of use.
If you are in Nebraska, or western edge of Iowa some areas of south dakot and Kansas, I highly recommend Internet Nebraska, they provide DSL, dialup, and cable and their terms and conditions are extremely reasonable. Not to mention they are nice people. =)
It may be due to initial sequence numbers, or possibly the way that a computer responds to IP packets with certain header options set (although I'm not sure if that would be possible when NAT is involved). You could probably get around it by having OpenBSD do the NAT - as it can basically rewrite NATted packets so it looks like it's all coming from the OpenBSD box. The OpenBSD pf firewall is being ported to other BSDs too, apparantly, so you might find you can get it to do the same thing on FreeBSD.
Oh yeah and I asked them to change their policy to match their advertising or change their advertising to match their policy (At least qualify unlimited).
Me
Who is this "Poster" guy and why does he own all of my comments?!?
Don't feel bad, you'll get lucky eventually, and then get modded to troll ( note: I'm not saying I don't deserve it, but how many times would you get a chance to get FP on /.? )
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"You must not maintain or permit multiple concurrent connections to the Internet Access."
Yes, god forbid I should have multiple concurrent conections to "the internet access". Does that mean I can't read the web while downloading something? Christ, every modern web browser uses at least two concurrent connections to download a page, usually four.
never recording Your password on Your computer
What a joke. So they've banned the feature in many web browsers which lets you save (auto-enter) login information for your low-security sites.
How gay.
Having worked at a McDonalds, I believe it...
I know lots of things. Most of them are wrong.
You complain about the agreement, but by agreeing to it, you mearly re-enforce that it's okay for them to do it. There are countless registrars out there now. Most will allow you to transfer a domain name for their annual fee and then include a 1 year extension so the transfer is basically free.
By clicking you agree, you're voting with your dollars, and that's all that matters to these companies.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Yes, yes, yes, but does it run on Linux?
BOO! TERRO
This effectively means that no broadband, dialup or other ISP customers who get an IP address when they connect will be able to send mail directly to AOL, you wil instead be forced to use your ISPs or some other willing SMTP relay which AOL considers to be worthy of peering with. No more end-to-end TLS encryption and/or verification; no more routing around overburdoned ISP mail hubs.
There is as yet no indication that I've seen one way or the other on what they're doing about DELIVERING mail to such addresses, but if you run your own mail server, be prepared to find that AOL.com no longer exists (which you may not consider "bad", exactly, and in fact I currenly have no plans to route around this particular damage other than to get my relatives to find new ISPs, even if that means going to MSN... *shudder*).
Many have made the argument that this is reasonable for AOL to do because many ISPs have TOSes that ban servers. So far, the standard retort has been 1) no ISP bans direct-to-MX transmission of mail except where it is spam 2) most ISPs don't enforce said rule (and tacitly encourage users to roll their own) 3) not ALL ISPs have such restrictive TOSes, and of course 4) that's none of AOL's business when receiving an incoming message.
For those who are interested in details, here's the almost useless blurb I get when telneting to port 25 on any random AOL MX host:Good luck!
Any number of ways. You might note different OS/browser references, or other differences in the way traffic is going from the ISP to you. The problem you face is that I reckon quite a few people will have DSL modems that are also routers. I know I do. And their TOS would seem to preclude this very sensible use of simple tools to protect your computer.
Find another ISP, if you can.
Terms of service? Um, I don't worry about the TOS. I contact the ISP and let them know what I am going to do. I let them tell me what packages are provided for the service desired. I take bids. It levels the playing field quickly. You can get exceptions written into your TOS. When I was on Dial up, I even got permission to have an ocassional dual connection at no extra charge. I told them due to my work schedule, I may be home during the day while the wife is at work. She may check e-mail while at work while I was home surfing the web. No problem. Got it in writing. This doesn't mean sharing the account with all my extended family. That would be a violation of the TOS. It pays to ask for any exceptions you need to the TOS. Your milage is better with small local ISP's and not national mega ISP's. Mega ISP's legal department are too busy to consider the exceptions.
The truth shall set you free!
Hmmm, this is interesting:So no posting Project Gutenberg texts, then. Taken literally, anything I post has to be trademarked.So, no GPL'd software that I wrote then, but presumably other peoples' GPL'd software is ok.Seems reasonable, they need the right to distribute the data, they might want to keep an archive, and they might want to sell that archive as an asset. Note the limiting nature of the last paragraph.
IMO, there's nothing sinister here, although the first section I quoted is just incompetently written.
They changed the agreement quite a while ago, and like you I freaked out when I read it. Unlike you, I have left the "agree" link unclicked for months, while I slowly move my domains to other registrars. There are better (or equal) companies, why not move to them?
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Counting NAT'ed hosts. It's possible (due to the non-random way most OS's handle the IPid field (NOT sequence numbers) in TCP headers.
AFAIK OpenBSD has a side-project going to negate this technique. However, i seriously doubt your ISP is actually putting this method into practice - its just too much work.
Janie took my gun...
Yes, well your knowledge isn't quite exhaustive, is it?
Did you even try googling for detecting nat and clicking on the first link?
Is it a wonder MS is strongly pushing for this law?
I just transferred my domain from Network Solutions over to Go Daddy.. Cheaper and much better service.. and no I don't work for Go Daddy I hear Joker is cool as well.
That whole area of the world is pretty draconian if you ask me. Yeah, that includes you too Aussies!
They must not value individual rights down there.
I have used and been 100% happy with my isp APK.net for the last decade. If you are in N.E. Ohio I highly recomend them. There aren't any really bad clauses in their TOS which can be viewed Here. The only things I don't like is the no lan clause (actually this is only in the dialup TOS and is kind of bunk because the owner specifically recomends a NAT'ing firewall for DSL service so I doubt it's ever been enforced), and the account placed on hold for a no-hangup program clause which again I have never heard of them enforcing (I ran some bots for a while and they never questioned me about the line being connected for 21 days straight =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The thing about 'no derogatory comments about our service' is nothing new - in the mid to late 1980s, Micronet (and Prestel), an online service in Britain, also had the same thing. And they did threaten to kick off a friend of mine for complaining about Micronet in one of the message boards.
Their AUP also didn't allow any kind of profanity in the message boards, either!
They did have some good things (such as Shades the MUD, which is *still going* - telnet games.world.co.uk, yes, it's on port 23).
That's not to say it's right. The "you must only say good things about us" clause was incredibly dumb, and people often pushed at them, just to see how far they could go.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
EULA
By reading this comment, you immediately waive any and all rights regarding it.
In fact, some I'm downright thrilled with.
Like ones that come in text boxes that you can edit.
Such as the agreement with ATI I cheerfully clicked my agreement to. When I was done with it, it said "In appreciation for downloading this driver suite, ATI inc. will send me one (1) riding pony in good health and standing in the equine community."
They've since changed the format, but I still don't have my pony.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Richard Pearse beat the Wright brothers out in the heavier than air category. He lived right here in CHristchurch, NZ
...The agreement guarantees nothing in return of PAYMENT. USER is being held liability for utilizing services provided by PROVIDER and PROVIDER bears no responsibility to any damage that SERVICE would have caused to USER...PROVIDER can terminate services without further notice...USER agrees to settle PAYMENT on agreed schedule regardless of any instance covered or not covered in this AGREEMENT...
Holy-shit! I signed to pay for nothing!
At least it's darn clear "I SCREW U" statements.
Damn it, I got that wrong. I got laid first, then did the fp. I skipped step two it seems.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
My ISP has some pretty dubious sections. Not as blatant as the one from NZ. "You hereby acknowledge that Your Service Provider and its affiliates may retain and use any information, comments or ideas conveyed by you relating to the Service (including any products and services made available on the Service). This information may be used to provide you with better service." The section in brackets gives me the willies. Best to encrypt everything of value.
Just curious... How is this story any different from any number of the stories Slashdot has featured entitled "Do you really read your EULA?"
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Its not Slashdot per se causing these effects on you. Have you also been exposed to various "Free Software ideology" (that's free as in ankle tracking device)? I have found that this drives men gay, and has no effect on women (since they never cared in the first place). The only way you can reverse these effects are by looking into an operating system that Linuxers have heard of (only that it "sux0rs!@#@#", they either have never used it, or use it every day and lie about using Linux) ,Windows XP. This OS will turn you straight, and before you know it, your sphincter will be as good as new. Good luck.
PS: Watch for anything made by Apple, that's a surefire way to gay - probably in less time than Linux.
I use enom.com. I think they charge $30 which is pretty expensive, but my webhost has a deal with them so it's only $10, and then the webhost pays half of that. I haven't seen anywhere that will beat $5 :).
I've heard good things about Go Daddy. I'm considering registering a few names with them for future site ideas I'm think of just to make sure I have them if I need them.
Jason
ProfQuotes
SBC is a bitch
Shes a big fat bitch
Shes the biggest bitch in the whole wide world
Shes a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch
Shes a bitch to all the boys and girls...
Monday shes a bitch, on tuesday shes a bitch,
Wednesday to saturday shes a bitch
Then on sunday just to be different
She's a super king kamayamayabitch...
Have you ever met my friend Kyle's ISP?
SBC's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world
Shes a mean old bitch and she has stupid hair
Shes a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
Shes a stupid bitch
SBC's a bitch
Shes just a dirty bitch
Kyles ISP is a biiiiiiitch
Whoa yeah!
Next week, Kyle's service provider looses segments due to faked macs, ewwwwwwww, bitch!
Yeah, that must be a harsh punishment indeed, depriving them of their sheep.
Good one, hardy har har!
That's almost as funny as having to change your entire project license if you link to GPL library. All your freedoms are belong (c) to RMS!
Here's a link that outlines one possible way, which was slashdot'ed a while ago
Is there any way to stop this detection?
The best way I could come up with is to obfuscate the number of clients behind your NAT - use one of the BSD/Linux firewalls, and the only external communications from any of your clients would be via a proxy server on the firewall - squid with some of the anonymous settings (turning off User Agent, having generic plugins defined, etc etc etc) comes to the top of my mind. Of course, this would potentially keep any of your client systems from being able to do non-proxied communications. I don't know - any other ideas out there?
While I on the subject of crappy ISP's I don't understand what is the point of all these conditions.
At a guess they either employed or retained an overpriced "lawyer" who then has to do something to appear to be useful.
No
'Free speech' is a thing of the past.
Don't believe me? Ask the Dixie Chicks...or Henry Norr.
"By clicking you agree, you're voting with your dollars, and that's all that matters to these companies."
People will sign contracts without reading them because it is highly inconvenient to do otherwise. I regard that as their right, but I also think it's important that they suffer the full consequences if it backfires on them. God help you if I'm on a civil jury where you're a defendant that signed a contract without reading it. People don't read real world paper contracts that bestow financial obligations, what makes you think they read things like the software licenses or the back of the utility bill? They (reasonably) assume that there are no dire consequences awaiting them, so they choose to take the risk.
Now, I do usually ask people that are getting married if they can briefly outline an understanding of the State marriage license. So far, not one has actually read it before signing....
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I agree with you, and I do read the contracts. When I was applying to access my bank account online, I was supposed to sign a form saying I'd read and agreed to the terms of service on a separate document. When I asked to see that document, the customer service person looked at me like I was nuts. It took her 10 minutes to find a copy and then I sat there and read the 5 page document. There was a clause that said they are not responsible if someone steals from my account even if it's their own employee acting through their negligence. Basically it gives them the right to take my money any time they want. Of course I refused to sign the agreement and from the reactions of the people there that was the first time it had happened.
I was taking an IT law course at the time, so I took a copy of the contract to school and showed it to the lawyer teaching the course. He said if it went to court, a judge would probably throw the clause out, but it would cost so much to fight it, I'd still lose.
I wonder how many people have signed their life's savings over to their bank like that without even knowing it. Jason
ProfQuotes
Honestly, I don't have time to sit around and read three times to comprehend every EULA, TOS, Privacy Statement, etc. They're too long and there are too many of them. Might it be in my best interest to know before signing up or tossing the shrinkwrap, but I only get 24 hours in a day, and most of those are spent working or sleeping.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
A few years ago, when Yahoo! took over Geocities, they tried the same sort of thing with their TOS/AUP.
There was a brief general revolt by a number of customers, and they fairly quickly changed their policy to something more reaswonable.
Here's my old Geocities page discussing the problem, which hasn't really been used since, other than putting up a newer pic of me:
http://www.geocities.com/eunuchone/
"Very funny, Scotty, now beam down my clothes."
It's infinitely more funny than the shitty parent post.
To my knowledge there is no way in heck they can detect another computer behind a Nat.
Well then, you need a knowledge infusion.
You can detect multiple machines behind a NAT several ways, including IP header parsing, TCP sequencing, and others.
A loophole in our favor still exists here, though. They can tell that you run multiple OSs, but not multiple distinct machines. So when you get the letter of death, just patiently explain your rather convoluted use of Win2k and Linux under VM, with Basilisk for Win2k allowing you to run Macintosh apps (mention other emulators as needed to account for all machines they may think they know you have). Then wait for the silence at the other end, and make sure they agree to remove whatever absurd charges they apply to your account before they hang up in shame and confusion.
Just read the TOS for my ISP again and was reminded why I chose this ISP (even though it is not the cheapest available). One of the clauses says (roughly translated):
I feel that this should be a standard clause in any ISP's TOS.
- Don't hack the servers or gain unauthorized access to accounts
- No originating spam
- No running chats without approval
- Allows background scripts and self-written CGI as long as they don't screw with the system
- If your scripts are resource hogs, they may ask you to upgrade your service
- No IRC or IRC bots
- No illegal stuff
- No porn/obscene, etc.
There is the phrase "or any other material which we deem to be objectionable" to include Satanic materials. However, that's a catch-all that I don't believe has been used. I'll ask.its just too much work.
That made no sense.
Some people make no sense.
They should have waited until they had a monopoly on NZ before pulling this.
Bad, bad, bad strategy.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Indeed, I never read TOS.
But I really enjoyed my ISP. Fast, reliable, not that expensive, and my IP address didn't change as long as the gateway renewed the lease.
But one day, friends using the same ISP told me that all their incoming connections got firewalled. They couldn't connect to their host any more, even through POP, SMTP or SSH.
I checked it, and they were right. The ISP firewalled everything without any prior notice.
A look at the TOS revealed that indeed, customers don't have the right to host any server. No SSH, no SMTP, nothing.
I moved to another ISP since. The new ISP is a bit more expensive, but that's the price to pay to read in their TOS that servers are allowed, and NAT is allowed as well.
{{.sig}}
I used to work (partner) for Compuserve in the UK and as a tech/supervisor I was used to telling customers that although they did not use their account they had agreed to pay monthly by clicking the "i agree" button during signup. ;)
Until one day I went through all this and the guy said "no i did not", taken aback, I advised him that to get a compuserve account he MUST have clicked "I agree", he said not.
Turned out that when buying the system the helpfull salesman set him up with the account (credit card details and all) and he had clicked "I agree", I advised the customer to take up this issue with the salesman
Never heard from the customer again.
ERR 411[Max number of witty sigs reached]
Anyways, the TOS is here.
Not the worst I've seen: The usual Two-hour cutoff.. The daft combination of the 'we reserve the right to release your information to third parties' clause together with the 'you must not use this service for the distribution of unsolicited material to third parties' clause..
Look at section 7, 'Intellectual Property Rights'. No claims to any of your stuff.
They do have a few annoying things, like the clause that states they may terminate access if you use their service "in a way that does not comply with any written or electronic instructions sent by us to you or posted on the Portal by us from time to time".
So I have to keep checking the TOS "from time to time".. (yeah, right..)
In fact the only thing remotely scary is that they still have a clause that says:
"We may need to amend the Privacy Policy from time to time. Any such amendment will take effect as soon as it is posted on the Tiscali Portal. You are therefore encouraged to familiarise yourself with the Privacy Policy on a regular basis. The Privacy Policy will always be easily accessible online throughout Tiscali Portal."
So shop around. I don't suggest Tiscali are the best IP (heaven forbid!!), but they are decent enough for my needs.
They don't chase up after you or infringe on rights etc.. but their tech support leaves a bit to be desired sometimes: They tend to not give out too much info on any problems like the recent DOS attacks (if you are interested look about, Usenet and the Register both have stuff on them), I've also noticed them editing several historical entries on their service status page to make it look like it has always been plain sailing..
(Aw well, can't have everything..) :)
It's really relaxed. The basic things are in there like anti-spam clauses and such.
;-)
It even goes so far as to state in a seperate document what kind of information is being kept and why.
It even has a clause stating that it is ALLOWED to try and hack their own servers. If you succeed and gain admin rights you are given 6 months free service under the strict rules that you disclose your methods and tools used to achieve this.
Perhaps this TOS should be made mandatory for any ISP....
I think i'll pursue a career as a professional EULA/TOS writer. Anyone know how they pay? $bling
My ISP TOS says that I can't host a _public_ web server. I rang the service desk, and they say that you can run on _private_ web server, but not on port 80.
Can some one give me an explanation?
Not too bad, you would say, but then let's look at the details for ADSL:
Installation: $149.50 (1Euro=1$ for simplicity).
Monthly fee for line: LuxDSL Start: $49.95
Monthly fee for ISP: SpeedSurf Start: $29.33
So, a total of $80 per MONTH for 256Kbit...Now, that is without ADSL modem...Now, what is that for? 1Mb d/l? No, that is for 256Kbit/s d/l and 64Kbit/s u/l.
For 512?...
LuxDSL Run (for phone line right?): $65.55
For ISP: $39.10
So, a total of $105 per MONTH for 512Kbit...I can't believe that the price goes up on the phone line dependant on the speed at which I surf...There is NO REASON for this. (This is a LUX RANT). This should be against human rights :D
Karem Lore
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Here's a paragraph from my Internet Service Agreement. (Emphasis mine.)
9. MONITORING THE SERVICES
EarthLink has no obligation to monitor the Services, but may do so and disclose information regarding use of the Services for any reason if EarthLink, in its sole discretion, believes that it is reasonable to do so, including to: satisfy laws, regulations, or governmental or legal requests; operate the Service properly; or protect itself and its subscribers. Please see our Privacy Policy. EarthLink may immediately remove your material or information from EarthLink's servers, in whole, or in part, which EarthLink, in its sole and absolute discretion, determines to infringe another's property rights or to violate our Acceptable Use Policy.
I love my Verizon DSL. They let me be a "server"... Comcast / ATTBI does not allow "servers". I called one day and asked what a server was... It's amazing what I found
-anything running FTP is a server
-Linux is not a server
-Windows NT Workstation is not a server
-Windows 2000 Advanced Server is a server
-MS IIS is a server
-P2P is not a server, but can be depending on bandwidth (ie if you use too much)
1 machine, 1 IP per customer, if your usage "degrades the experience of any other user" (ie bandwidth hog) you can be shut down. etc. etc. etc.
ROFL
Are Terms of Service, or license agreements on software, actually binding? What if they put "by agreeing to this you owe us $1,000,000", i'd be out a lot of money since I never read them.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
building a businesses reputation up the easy way by providing good serive when you can just sue anyone who dosn't like you? Much easier.
My woman searches for the best free web hosts that DON'T have crappy TOS and apparently there is lots and lots of dodgy ones that claim all sorts of bullshit about owning your IP. Though even if they say "we give you this free service and get to own your stuff" if they tried to own it you could still sue their arses and win easily because such claims are just not going to hold up. You can't make just any claim in a TOS and expect it to stick if it's basically illegal (no money paid for the IP, no sale).
The article and the comments by many that have posted shows how ignorant Joe public really is. People keep on referring to this "right to free speech" as though it applies everywhere in all areas. Well sorry to burst your bubble, but that's not so.
The right to free speech does not extend to private property. This is why if I'm inside your house and make a nasty comment about you, you are free to kick me out. The same goes for ISPs. You are subscribing to their service within their private property. If they choose to enforce their TOS a certain way, and you agree to it, then you have no case for this assertion of freedom of speech.
eTrade SUCKS
Interesting, once my account was terminated at a local ISP because my younger brother was "critical" of them in an IRC channel, which happened to have an employee in the same channel. The explanation was that his comments "violated the TOS". So basically, if your ISP (ezy.net) sucks, you have to keep it to yourself, or you lose it...
I can't imagine that's something you can do because allowing bad things to happen is just kind of dumb.
I mean I understand their point - that a benevolent hacking dude will hack the system, gleefully take the 6 monthes of free use, and tell them their security hole.
But in reality, what people in their right mind would do that? I mean, assuming: The hacker was benevolent and wanted the 6 monthes. If you hacked the system - you have unlimited, forever usage of the system, hence the word "0wnz," I believe?
If you are hacking with malevolent intentions, even less will there be a chance of you telling them what happened - and you will just, again, keep making use of the system to send out spam or look through your ex-gf's email or something.
The only thing that I can imagine is bragging rights - but really who would you brag to? the trade off is "bragging rights to your friends + unlimited free use, forever (or, for a long ass time)" vs "bragging rights to your friends and your ISP + 6 monthes free use + ISP will probably forever look at you with extra caution." I really don't think the latter is worth it.
By doing this you are (I think) voiding your rights of prosecution. It's like saying to people "Yeah if you can jack my lambo with its whiz-bang security system and I'll let you drive it around for half a day if you tell me how you jacked it." Are you nuts? If I go through the pains of jacking the car, you bet your butt you ain't getting it back. (The analogy works better if you imagine that the car-thief was only taking the car out at nights to pick up chicks or something - why would you give up that privledge for a chance to drive it for 6 hours during the day?)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
XTRA enforces their policies by setting the evil bit on TCP packets it deems inappropriate. Hackers are circumventing this by using the carrier pigeon protocol
----
Squirrel
goood! thats quite good. Very bright idea...
vmware fits just right as an excuse
(i dont think they do nat counting anyway, but better safe than sorry)
In other words, you are responsble for the basic security of your computer. If you have an id10t problem and open up every attachment asking for your advice and get absolutely every virus that comes along - a pretty good definition of negligent, in this context - they can hold your feet to the fire for it.
Anyone who has ever worked for an ISP would feel joy at having such a clause, b/c it would allow you dump a certain group of problem customers, should you choose to do so. Finally, being grossly stupid is a crime, or least a TOS violation. Woohoo! :-)
Basically if I was transmitting a email with a .pdf file to another scientist to verify my cold fusion experiment then this company by my agreement to their TOS would automatically have claim to my works.
Though in the US they'd have to prove that they did it first which in that case they woulnt be able to.
Xtra is owned by telecom.
telecom has the monopoly on telecommunications (land based, and just miss out by a few million for cell phones).
Telecom have total power.
For starters as the company that owns all the exchanges, anyone wanting DSL must pay them to connect it and then a monthly fee ($NZ30 a month)
They also OWN the netgate. The majority of NZs international traffic goes out through this (which connects to the southern cross cable)
they can do practicaly what ever they want with it.
They also have the power to do silly things like at peak phone usage times, DISCONNECT dialup users to give more phonelines. they fob off the customer who pays 30$ a month, so someone else can pay 10$ for a 15min call to there relative to say 'merry xmas'
THD
oh no, ive just bad mouthed XTRA "Look I cant change the way I think And I cant change the way I am. But if I offended you? Good 'cause I dont give a fuck"
thats right, i read my isp's tos. i didnt want them to screw me over sometime in the future. it said something about not hacking and how they are not responsible for acts of God. P.S. God would Ow/\/ comcast in a second if he wanted
> "I allege that SCO is full of it" -Linus
The detailed version: http://www.research.att.com/~smb/papers/fnat.pdf
A nice simple version with pictures (I like pictures): http://www.icir.org/vern/imw-2002/slides/112-slide s.pdf
The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
Nice. I wonder if they actually send the agreement to customers or just expect them to find it on the website themselves like I did.
Interestingly, this section doesn't seem to say anything about intent. It seems to me that having an infected computer that sends out virusses is a violation of the TOS.
Not sure that's a right I really want them to reserve...
As if the rest wasn't good enough, the agreement can change at any time and the only way to find out is to check their web site.
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
I own a small software company; the license agreement to use our software is about 25 pages long. It isn't off-the-shelf software, I won't bore you with the specifics, but it is niche market, mission critical software that really does need a lengthy agreement. I should also mention that the licensees *always* have their lawyers involved in the negotiation, it's not inexpensive software.
At any rate, I have found that when you ask your attorney to write up an agreement for such-and-such, they will invariably write a very one-sided agreement, they will want the other party to sign their life away. After we have verbally come to terms with a new customer, our attorney writes up a license agreement, and more often than not he has put in major restrictions and terms which were not part of our verbal terms with the new customer - we then have to "send it back" to have our attorney remove restrictions which really are excessive.
Before you say that our attorney is just trying to take more time and bill us more: he really isn't - he is just attempting to watch our back in every way he can.
The flip side is also true, when a customer's attorney writes up the agreement, it invariably claims that the customer has exclusive, unlimited, rights to our software. It says that if they [the customer] stubs their toe after installing the software we are liable for millions of dollars. It says we cannot license our software to anyone else [as the customer "owns" it now], etc., etc.
Needless to say, we won't sign such an agreement.
In a nutshell, when attorneys write up any sort of legal document, they really do try to protect their customer in every way they can, and more often than not they go overboard. It really (imho) isn't their job to "see it from the other side", and hence the one-sided agreements.
When you are negotiating an agreement and both sides are represented by council, usually a fair agreement comes out in the end - but when only one side is represented, you can get "terms of service" as that ISP has published.
I suspect that the "fair" terms of service we do frequently see and agree to have been either not written by an attorney, and/or have had someone (but probably not the attorney) playing the role of the customer and looking at the agreement from their point of view.
Evidently, that didn't happen in this case.
An interesting, off-topic, side note that an attorney once told me: If there is a grey area in a contract, usually a court will side with the party that DIDN'T author the contract.
might want to consider..
Article 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
hmmmmmmm
cuba springs to mind here.
dont fight for one right above all only to turn around and find you have lost everything else.
A
Kingdom of Loathing (www.kingdomofloathing.com) Addicted is me
If they're going to use browser/OS references to pick up different computer, install a proxy (or even the UA Toolbar in Mozilla) to mask/change what you report and screw with them just using your one PC.
....I pay my $15/mo to my roommate and he makes the internet run
My ISP prohibits the transmission of objectionable material. I guess that's why their usenet server offers over 390 alt.binaries.*.erotica.* groups.
What a joke.
$G
-- $G
a friend of mine made a webpage about how much he hated his internet provider. They threatened to take him to court over it. Since he wasn't old enough they opted to ban him from the service and harrass his parents for a long time.
He later wrote a song about it for his band which became fairly popular in the area for a while.
Probably completely unrelated to this, last I heard that internet provider was nearly out of business.
"no one knows how to fill in the void called america" --the discovery channel
Now that's what I call a provider.
please define "unlawful."
(c) Investigation of Unlawful Conduct. AT&T cooperates fully with federal and state enforcement officials investigating unlawful behavior on AT&T Worldnet High Speed Service's system, and members are required to do the same. You acknowledge and agree that AT&T Worldnet High Speed Service may preserve Content and may disclose Content if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: (i) comply with legal process; (ii) enforce this Agreement; (iii) respond to claims that any Content violates the rights of third-parties; or (iv) protect the rights, property or personal safety of AT&T, its users and the public.
If your site is on a discount ISP (especially a free one), and you start getting a ton of unique hits, you can expect to see the ISP chasing after your property with some asterisk in their TOS. No one cares what you do until you're making money, then they're ALL interested!
stuff |
Original here.
Be careful what you post with them.
Thankfully, no restrictions on how you talk about thier service. Just the usual "no bad stuff".
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
I Accept
might want to consider..
Article 9.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
This is one reason why George Bush says that the U.N. is irrelevant.
then you're ok, becuase Xtra's TOS is clear on that matter.
SBC is also trying to get everyone to switch to Yahoo/SBC Broadband. A service where Yahoo provides you with all kinds of extra crap you don't need. Yahoo's terms of service start out by telling you that they are going to monitor everything that you do "so they can provide you with a better service." Can you believe that crap. I wonder how many people are just signing up and how many people are objecting. My guess is that the ones that take the time to read their TOS are objecting and the others are signing!
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
I wonder how much it pays as a professional TOS/EULA writer.
When I went ISP shopping after Telocity exploded, I shopped almost by TOS/AUP alone. Not only did I read it carefully, I discussed sections with bewildered sales reps at some length.
I got a lot of "Actually, no one has ever asked us about our TOS." Well, this is the brave new world of the 00's. Get used to it. We are your worst nightmare - informed consumers.
The new policies are most likely just the standard msn policies due to Xtra having been purchased from Telcom NZ in the post bubble spending spree M$ has been on.
If you check the sequence number for fragmented IP packets you can count it. There was an article some time ago about it.
The lines with "fewer 'junk' here" used to be long lines of ====, but Slashdot said that was evil.
The TOS for the Express Network basically says that you are not allowed to use Express Network. For anything.
Specifically, they prohibit "machine-to-machine" connections, which, as far as I can tell, limits you from connecting your Express Network enabled computer to any other computer.
Oddly, they say you can use it to read email and surf the web, which I have a hard time reconciling with the whole part about how I'm not allowed to actually connect to the mail servers and web servers.
-- Fratz, human
I have a server not in the dynamic range - I can relay off it. Interestingly, ORDB's mail server rejects my 24.25 IP, but it's not listed in their open relay list...
One thing I wonder if they have thought of, even though they claim that they are not responsible for slander... of their users. If they are claiming that they share the copyright. It might open them up to legal challenges in certatin circumstances. Say one of their users places a copyrighted work on a site that they claim is their own creation. Then the original holder instead of suing joe-blow they decide , hey lets sue the ISP they have computers, resources, seeing as I use to own an ISP I know they don't have a lot of MONEY LOL.
IANAL, but as far as I know, if you can't be reasonably expected to understand what you're agreeing to, then you can't be held liable for it.
Is there any truth to that?
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
I believe that you can avoid it if you compile your own kernel and include a few extra gsecurity items like totally randomizing your IP IDs, randomize TCP source ports, randomize RPC XIDs, and select altered Ping IDs. It may just be selecting randomize IP IDs...or am I way off base here? I recall this topic on slashdot some weeks back and recall that something along the lines of what I list above was a fix.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
How was that arbitrary? They were linked to Al-Quaeda. Arbitrary would be grabbing random Arabs off the street, just in case they were terrorists. That's not what they did, bespite the knee-jerk drivel spouted from the left.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm on Comcast in Pennsylvania. A couple of weeks ago they rolled out a change which happened to cause a major screw-up in my (Comcast owned) cable modem, and really confused my poor little PC due to the fact they hadn't considered all the ramifications of their change. (Exact details: long and boring, and I'm still figuring some of them out, because Comcast won't give me the information.) They pushed it out twice in two days, which meant I had exactly the same problem two mornings in a row.
When I contacted them to ask them to politely explain what the heck they'd done (being a little irate as it had taken me two hours to determine just what was going on, not including all the downtime), they first told me they hadn't done anything, then admitted they had done something but it couldn't do what I said it had done and I was making it up, and finally told me "yes, we did it, gosh that's unfortunate, bad luck, goodbye".
Comcast is appalling, and has no technical ability at all. (If I had the same amount of outage as they do, I'd be fired so fast my feet wouldn't touch the ground.) By the way, did you have a service level agreement with your old ISP? You don't with Comcast -- at least in Pennsylvania, you don't. That's right -- NO SLA at all.
I could go on and on about Comcast. Unfortunately, they happen to fit in that last caveat of the parent poster -- they are indeed in a monopoly situation. Scum.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
They can do business on whatever terms they want. If I don't like it, I can go somewhere else.
I'll probably have an answer to my customer service request about their policy tomorrow (time difference).
You can get exceptions written into your TOS.
When ATTBI was ATT@home, I had a written contract with them that stated, in writing, "static address due to home network." When ATTBI took over, they took away my static address, and basically told me to fuck off.
So getting it in writing only works if you're willing to pony up the legal fees to file a breach of contract suit. Otherwise, written agreements are no better than a roll of blank toilet paper.
No. It's too depressing. Excuse me while I use an old dialup account so I can run an httpd or ftpd process that actually works again.
I had a sucky sig.
After all, xtra.co.nz was also the ISP that wrongly sued ORBS out of existence. It comes as no shock to me at all that they'd try anything they could to benefit themselves as a company, and screw their users in the process.
It is because of such deplorable practices that xtra.co.nz, as a domain, enjoys permanent residency in Blue Feather's 'Deny Access' list. I'm sure I can't be the only admin who's done that.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
That's the rub. Many broadband providers are basically local monopolies due to technological limitations. Some lucky people can get Cable or DSL, but most people are stuck with one or the other (if they're lucky! Most of the time you have no option). Wireless is still small beans and doesn't even really factor into this equation.
The problem is that broadband providers know this, and they're making full use of their monopoly position to force these kind of agreements on the customer. The big companies are the worst with this, as they implement insane ToS agreements, sky high prices, upload/download caps, and often times maximum bit caps. What's a customer supposed to do? Switch back to modem? Have you ever tried to switch back to modem after getting used to downloading ISOs and whatnot on a regular basis? I've got friends who come over from a few miles away (no broadband at all) just to run windows update on their machines so they don't get hacked during the 10 minutes they get to be online because windows update takes too long to run over modem (especially if a new IE version comes out). Even efficent things like CVsup take a long time to run. Oh, and if you're an online gamer you can just forget about switching back to modem. As the world becomes more and more connected people are assuming more and more about your available bandwidth, to the detriment of anybody still using archaic technologies.
Just my US$0.02.
I read the internet for the articles.
It's standard legal language to protect the service provider from idiots who want to sue them because "you, my ISP, made copies of my copyrighted web page available to everyone via the Internet!!!"
Duh. That's what a service provider is supposed to do, but they have to include the kind of legal disclaimer above to protect themselves from litigious idiots.
Here's my story.
The page in question.
I sure every ISP'S TOS forbids the illeagle tranfer of copyrighted files. So I guess this means very few people can run freenet because of what it might be sending.
Privacy?
I mean, they can sniff your connection and analyze your traffic??
This sounds terrible. Isn't this forbidden by privacy laws?
I think, here in germany, it is (not 100% sure), but isn't it also in the U.S./NZ elsewhere?
And some providers here have also such silly TOS...
When I left UK 2 1/2 years ago, few UK high street banks offered internet banking. Only HSBC didn't say 'any transaction on your account is your responsibility even if you can prove it wasn't you', and a few wouldn't even permit internet account access outside the UK (!!). So of course I went with HSBC. Wonder if the situation has improved since...
behind the NAT, all with the same serial number (but different network card IDs of course), then can the machines be distinguished? After all, it's perfectly legit to use the same serial number on multiple machines, s'long as you have actually bought the multiple copies.
I recently switched from Chello cable internet to a 128/768 ADSL line with XS4All as my ISP. I'm very pleased with them. Not only do they allow your own servers (both http and mail) but they put Sendmail security warnings on the helppages.
And the don't care about NAT, etc. They even provide information to set up routers/firewalls and NAT.
Did you notice the article here a few days ago about a proposed law that "would make firewalls and NAT illegal" if they resulted in "defrauding" the ISP?
One of the guesses as to why was so that terms like this could be used to outlaw multiple computers on the same connection.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"The Client owns the Domain Name registered. Gandi simply acts on the Client's behalf..."
A bunch of other registrars like to claim ownership of the domain and just "let you use it" during your contract. But then also reserve the right to take the domain away from you if they choose.
Ok, the fact that it typically costs US $10-$13/yr (depending on exchange rates) is nice too. Domains I've registered through them have always showed up in WHOIS within an hour or so and DNS started working within 24.
Whatever you do, if you don't like the 300 page TOS you just agreed to, I would immediately transfer your domain to some other registrar with a better TOS. Most registrars charge you for a one year contract when you transfer to them, but they add an extra year to your current domain expiration... basically making the transfer free.
http://www.ratedtoons.com/flash/Interorgasm.swf
Q: How many /. readers does it take to interpret legalese? /. now.
/.'ers interpreted to
/. community's
A: Apparently more than read
After seeing the story
and comments about the Michigan law that
outlaw VPNs and now seeing this post referring to 'freedom of speech' I
could no longer withhold comment. There seems to be an apparent
overzealous attitude by many readers who have absolutely no
understanding of U.S. law, the constitution, or legal agreements in
general.
Where, exactly, in the constitution or bill of rights is there a
guarantee of one's freedom of private speech? In short, there is none.
The government shall make no provision abridging free speech. When you
sign and/or agree to an ISP's terms of service, you are entering into a
private agreement. As such, there is absolutely no right to free speech
just as there is no requirement that you enter into the agreement or
continue acceptance of the terms of the agreement by using the service.
In general you have a right to express your opinion about a product or
service, notwithstanding your agreement not to do so. Even without an
agreement preventing you from speaking about a product or service, there
is never protection for slanderous or libelous speech.
It would be nice if readers and especially the editors understood anything
about the law or legal agreements before getting the
collective panties in a bunch. I would recommend finding an editor that
has some legal background to be the primary editor for legal issue posts.
In the case of Slashdot etc. OSDN should have a right to publish your comments. If you submit a story, the editors may modify it. For really really bad comments, it is possible that they could be deleted.
You still own your comments, but OSDN has a right to use, mainly so they don't get sued for quoting/reposting/etc your comments. So unless you're placing plans for your new cold-fusion device on slashdot... it's not such a big deal.
With a bad ISP, they can try to claim rights on anything you pass through the lines. In terms of raw information, this could be a lot more serious than a slashdot post entered in a textbox.
I did this with a government agency that wanted to have free and unfettered access to my private medical records.
I scored that bit out, and added, that they may only have access upon contacting me first and obtaining my permission, and that I vet the information they can have access to (basically "no you can't have access", but less blunt.)
I signed the re-written contract and heard nothing more about it.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I don't think that you can set limits on a company's agreement, until you convince a judge there is reason enough to do so. In legal proceedings there are limits on replies, interrogatories , responses, etc. since people only have a certain amount of days to answer them. In your case, someone should petition the company (first) or a legal entity (second) to see what can be sone about this, because there may certainly be some tricks in their bag (agreement) in favor of stockholders, like what rights they have to terminate your service (leaving you with a $150 early cancellation/termination fee).
just tell your friends who ask why you changed vendors the following:
;)
"the service that vendor offers is more expensive than i'm willing to except". then state the business rule the vendor uses. you can even add on why you think its to expensive, but don't bore people with the painfully obvious.
just tell the unvarnished truth. leave off the acidic modifers. and if the other person disagrees with you, well, its not like you lied to them. ( of course you can smile real big when your friend comes back and starts screaming and ranting before telling you why their so upset)
You do realize that there are American citizens that were rounded up for being of Arab dissent right? You do know that many of them are still unaccounted for? You do know that the government ordered anyone from certain Arab nations to report to an immigration center ASAP and that many of them are still in custody and that there family and friends STILL don't know where they are?
Do a little research before talking out your ass.
You're welcome. We hope you enjoy your stay in our new province. Please be sure to pay your rent (taxes) on time, or we will be forced to evict you and place another tenant on the land to caretake it for us.
If you have any further comments, please direct them to our new Office of Yourlandisours, a local branch is located in every major metro area of each province we have acquired.
Thank you for your submission to our dominance.
Citizen,
United States of Earth
We the company, guarantee you, the client, a superb service that is both reliable and efficient.
But if anything goes wrong, we wont be held responsible.
TOS's are nothing but disclaimers for hypocritical businesses. Most of the time, the real meanings are hidden within all sorts of legal jargan that can't be understood anyway. I despise these things.
Hopefully US IPS's wont start acting in a similar manner. MSN probably already does.
I have never clicked "I Agree" in agreement with software license agreements. I just usually hit "Alt-A" and they always seem to disppear!
Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Well, I'm pretty sure we haven't signed this particular bill. Even if we have, it's probably buried under all those past-due notices from the UN.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
OSDN
Terms and Conditions of Use
1. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS
The Open Source Development Network, Inc. ("OSDN"), comprised of the internet sites osdn.com, slashdot.org, sourceforge.net, freshmeat.net, linux.com, animationfactory.com, gifworks.com, mediabuilder.com, postcardmaker.com, 3dtextmaker.com, newsforge.com, devchannel.com, and geocrawler.com (the "OSDN Sites"), provides the information and services on OSDN Sites to you, the user, conditioned upon your acceptance, without modification, of the terms and conditions of use ("Terms") contained herein. Your use of OSDN Sites constitutes agreement with such Terms.
Before using OSDN Sites, please carefully read this agreement relating to your use of OSDN Sites. By using OSDN Sites, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, please do not use OSDN Sites.
OSDN reserves the right, at OSDN's sole discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of these Terms periodically. Such modifications shall be effective immediately upon posting of the modified agreement to the website unless provided otherwise (e.g., when implementing major, substantive changes, OSDN intends to provide users with up to fourteen days of advance notice). Your continued use of the OSDN Sites following the posting of changes to these Terms will mean that you accept those changes.
Use of OSDN Sites constitutes full acceptance of and agreement to the Terms; if a user does not accept OSDN's Terms, he or she is not granted rights to use OSDN Sites as defined herein, and should refrain from accessing OSDN Sites.
To update these Terms, OSDN will post both the changed version and its effective date at http://osdn.com/terms.shtml.
OSDN reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, any or all OSDN Sites (or any part thereof). OSDN shall not be liable to any user or other third party for any such modification, suspension or discontinuance except as expressly provided herein.
2. NO UNLAWFUL OR PROHBIITED USE
By using OSDN Sites, you warrant to OSDN that you will not use OSDN Sites, or any of the content obtained from OSDN Sites, for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms. If you violate any of these Terms, your permission to use the OSDN Sites automatically terminates.
3. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES
The OSDN Sites are owned and operated by OSDN for the purpose of software development, discussion, implementation and innovation (the "Purpose"). The OSDN Sites provide technology news, tools, products and education for the IT and developer community.
4. REGISTRATION OBLIGATIONS
When requested, each OSDN Site user must: (1) personally provide true, accurate, current and complete information on the OSDN Site's registration form (collectively, the "Registration Data") and (2) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data as necessary to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. If, after investigation, OSDN has reasonable grounds to suspect that any user's information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, OSDN may suspend or terminate that user's account and prohibit any and all current or future use of the OSDN Sites (or any portion thereof) by that user other than as expressly provided herein.
Each user will receive passwords and account designations upon completing certain OSDN Site registration processes and is wholly responsible for maintaining the confidentiality thereof and wholly liable for all activities occurring thereunder. OSDN cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from a user's failure to comply with this Section 4, including any loss or damage arising from any user's failure to: (1) immediately notify OSDN of any unauthorized use of his or her password or account or any other breach of security; and (2) ensure that he or she exits from his or her account at the end of each session.
OSDN handles user Registration Dat
That will work in some case. But how do I score out clauses when the document I'm signing says it refers to another document? There's no room to write which clauses I reject. Also, in that case, it was a bank customer service agent I was dealing with. She doesn't have the authority to accept changers or the intelligence to forward it to someone who can. In that case it was a black or white issue; sign as is and get the account or don't sign and don't get it.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Mine was pretty bland stuff. They have paragraphs holding them harmless from what I happen to find on the net. They have paragraphs prohibiting spam and harassment. And in one interesting paragraph, they stated that I am granting permission for them to republish anything that I post to public areas, such as chat rooms, newsgroups, etc. They don't claim to own it. They're just covering themselves legally for the fact that it is available in a public place and allowing for the possibility that it will be archived. There are other terms about outages and so forth, but they're unrelated to this issue.
Frankly, that's exactly the sort of TOS I want to see. They are simply shielding themselves from liability as my conduit to the net.
The way I look at it, I only have 1 computer using my Internet connection. It's none of my ISP's business what other devices are in my house connected to that computer, or what services that computer is providing for those other devices.
So they may edit, forge and censor your PRIVATE E-MAIL (explicitly including in the preceding paragraph) as they please! I doubt that TOS can be legal, even in NZ.
-Lasse
Unfortunately that appears to have changed a little. Though it is still definitely much better then others, I can still run my server and be happy about it.
Read the terms yourself Britsys ToS
Apparently, I can do whatever I want. :)
My
It's probably worth pointing out that Aardvark Daily, the "news and commentary site" being linked to by slashdot, is sponsored by Ihug -- a rival ISP here in New Zealand. It's hardly an independant media source.
It was written by a lawyer ordered to cover their arse. It broadly defines any sort of network abuse I've ever heard of and leaves them with maximum discretion in prosecuting or dealing with anything and leaves them in complete control of the severability clause (e.g. they can disconnect me basically just because they feel like it)
Most are similar, from what I've read.
If, God forbid, something were to happen to easystreet, in your area you could try Aracnet. I have been with them for 6 years now, and they only had one spot of trouble a few years ago, but have been very reliable other than that. Their terms of service are pretty liberal: No IRC bots, no spam, no bots, don't do anything illegal, no bots, don't be an asshat, and no bots. I guess they REALLY don't like bots. From what I hear, Easystreet is as good or better, but at least there are alternatives to Comcast.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
hmmm... I don't even think that this is a binding contract. If you are already in a contractual relationship with them (which I think purchase of a domain name gives you), they can't modify the contract without additional consideration. That is, unless they are trying to claim that allowing you to use what is already yours is added consideration (which IMO is crap)
just use speakeasy. some of the people are dicks, but the company as a whole is awesome. very respectable company, no TOS that says 'we will ownerize you'.
Dunno about NZ, but here in the USA, Prodigy Services Co lost common carrier status in 1995 as a result of Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy Services Co because they actively monitored and censored postings.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
One ISP that i really dislike is ARN.Net (http://www.arn.net)
Here are some juicy parts that I have issue with... Someone I know once got close to a $9K bill as a result of #6. No they were NOT spammers nor doing anything illegal. They had co-located server which ARNet wanted to disconnect.
(http://www.arn.net/tandc.html)
Under Terms:
6. You agree to pay on demand all costs and expenses, including without limitation collection fees and reasonable fees of attorneys, other experts and court stenographers, and court costs incurred by ARNet in enforcing the Terms and Conditions or in protecting ARNet's rights and interests in the Terms and Conditions.
19. These Terms and Conditions may be modified by ARNet at any time, without notification.
If you dont like what I am saying, well then why dont you +++ATH0
There's an old saying among judges and lawyers, "Bad cases make bad law". The ISP that actually tries to enforce an IP provision like this in the U.S. could very well go down in history as the one who killed the golden goose. IMHO when the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court a whole bunch of IP related cases would get turned upside down. Same is true of some of the more ridiculous patent cases out there (we all know the ones I'm thinking of). Eventually the Justices may get to take a hard look at what "prior art" really means in our business, and I think their "remedy" is going to make alot of these tech-ignorant claimants very sad (not to mention bankrupt).
Only because there's room in Australia's constitution to annex New Zealand. Now wouldn't THAT be interesting.... New Zealand wouldn't HAVE to come up with excuses for their cricket team...
But does it run on { windows, dos, cpm, ... }
Bah, the more things change the more they stay the same.
The TOS in question says
Xtra does not claim ownership of any content or material you provide or make available through the Services ("Customer Material"). However, by placing any Customer Material on our Websites or Systems (including posting messages, uploading files, importing data or engaging in any other form of communication), you grant to Xtra a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable, unrestricted, worldwide licence to do the following in respect of the Customer Materials:
All they are doing is saying "You can't sue us for copyright infringement because we publish your web page." They explicitly state that they do not claim ownership of the content/material that you post on your page.
They are just covering their butts. Some of you idiots sound like you want that part of the TOS removed so that you can publish something you've copyrighted and then sue them for making your web page available.
Surely you can find a real issue to whine about, instead of having to make up a nonsense one like this.
I work for a semi-smallish ISP and frankly we dont' care what you run. :) We offer DSL and as long as you pay your bill and we don't get any spam complaints, DMCA violations, or notices from law enforcement agencies you can run whatever you want. I guess our policy is best described as "hey, you're paying for it, so you can use it however you want to as long as it's legal and doesn't impact our ability to provide service to all our customers."
:)
In fact one of our customers is running a small NATted ISP himself using our DSL service. I think he thinks we don't know. *shrug* Whatever.
For any original work you create, first assign the rights to someone else (like your spouse, a trust, your dog, etc.). Then go ahead and upload it. Since it's not "yours", they get no rights.
You do realize that there are American citizens that were rounded up for being of Arab dissent right?
Proof that a spellchecker is no substitute for intelligence.
Sweet mother of shit, you ain't kidding! That sucker is 230Kbytes and contains about 33000 words.
I said it here before, and I'll say it again. Pepple, stop being sheeple to the suits. Form Your Own Member-Owned Cooperative, or continue to slave away for The Man. Otherwise, suck it up and quite bitching, They're in it for the money, not to make you happy.
No porn to cover their ass on bandwidth. No bots, spam, etc., to cover their ass on legal ends.
They said their policy is not to censor content, only to protect themselves when they have to on legal or technical matters. "or any other material" was a catch-all for this.
You can't authorize a transfer-away without agreeing to their agreement anymore.
:(
I shudder every time I have to transfer a customer's domain to our OpenSRS reseller account and click on the "I agree" checkbox...
I've always thought that if I find something in a contract that's completely insane, I needed really t worry about it, because it'll never happen. It's only the things that aren't insane, just immoral that are dangerous.
I RTF-TOS. It's fairly clear as to what it intends:
If YOU the customer post something on your site, which is hosted on their server, you have, BY THAT ACT, given the ISP the right to distribute it: that is, to allow their web server to serve it (ie. publish and distribute it) in the usual way.
I think this is so the ISP can *avoid* getting sued for copyright infringement if you put something on their server that you didn't intend for the whole world to see, be that your intellectual property or someone else's.
IOW, it's a CYA, not an IP-rights grab.
(It's not even written in thick legalese, folks -- parse it down to basics instead of jerking the ol' knee so hard you whack yourself on the chin!)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
In the United States, any contract based on an illegal agreement is null and void. For example, in most states, any contract waiving your worker's compensation rights is void, to keep employers from forcing an unfair contract on its workers. Also, if you use a credit card to pay for prostitution, you don't have to pay, because the contract itself was illegal.
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Also, if you don't understand the contract fully, or are incapable of understanding the contract, I don't believe it is binding. I recieved something in the mail from my credit card company saying if I did not sign, I would waive my right to a jury trial in case of dispute. How can I be bound to a contract I never signed nor understood?
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Furthermore, while this can happen anywhere, a contract also cannot be forced under duress. Someone posted about having already paid and having the license agreement changed on him. That's illegal, because in order to access something he ALREADY PAID FOR he had to sign a new contract...that contract was signed under duress. That's like saying if you park your car in my parking garage, pay the posted fee, but when you come to get your car I make you sign this dreadful contract just to get it back. Not only is that a contract under duress, it's bait and switch.
Confushious say 1 chicken running worse then 5 quail flying into engine of jet
Actually I have read my ISP's TOS in detail, it wasn't all that long and I thought it was reasonable. I would think (at least here in the US) the legality of not being allowed to say bad things about your ISP would be questionable.