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VoIP Terms of Service May Surprise You
rabtech writes "If you are thinking of ditching a land-line for a VOIP provider such as Vonage or Net2Phone, you might want to think again. Software "End User license Agreements" have gotten a lot of attention in the past over their onerous and restrictive terms, but who would expect such things from your phone company? The prime example is Vonage, which states among other things that 'If Vonage, in its sole discretion believes that you have violated the above restrictions, Vonage may forward the objectionable material, as well as your communications with Vonage and your personally identifiable information to the appropriate authorities for investigation and prosecution and you hereby consent to such forwarding.'" (Read more below.)
"Don't forget the obligatory 'we can change these terms of service whenever we like and they become effective immediately when posted to our website.' Read for yourself here(1), here(2), and here(3). I won't put up with this kind of thing in my software and I certainly won't put up with it from my phone company!"
WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Internet phone systems, seen as the wave of the future in telecommunications, must be set up in such a way that conversations can be monitored by police and intelligence agencies, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said in a tentative ruling on Wednesday.
By a vote of 5-0, the FCC said "Voice over Internet Protocol," or VoIP, providers should be subject to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which ensures that law enforcers will be able to keep up with changing communications technologies.
The law does not apply to Internet-based communications but VoIP providers such as Vonage must comply because they are likely to replace much traditional phone service, the commission said.
The Justice Department, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have argued that they must be able to monitor suspicious calls no matter how they are made and have pushed the FCC to adopt rules so they will always have access.
Technology advocates have worried that the fast-growing service, which promises to slash costs by routing phone calls over the Internet, could be harmed by excessive regulation.
The ruling does not affect other pending regulatory questions surrounding VoIP service, such as how it should be taxed, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said.
"Our tentative conclusion, while correct, is expressly limited to the requirements of the CALEA statute and does not indicate a willingness on my part to find that VoIP services are telecommunications services," Powell said at a commission meeting.
Several commissioners said this attempt to avoid larger regulatory questions weakened the legal argument underpinning the ruling, though they all voted to support it.
"There are less roundabout ways to achieve this result than the collection of tentative conclusions we offer here, and there are better ways to build a system that will guarantee judicial approval," said Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat.
The ruling does not apply to "non-managed" VoIP services like Skype, which have more in common with file-trading networks like Kazaa than traditional phone networks.
Skype offers "peer to peer" software that allows users to talk directly with each other rather than going through pathways set up by the carrier.
Separately, the FCC ruled that commercial "push to talk" services offered by wireless providers like Nextel Communications Inc. would be subject to CALEA.
The ruling on "push to talk" services is final, but the FCC will accept further public comments before making its ruling on VoIP final.
The FCC has yet to determine how long VoIP carriers need to comply with wiretap laws, and whether outside companies can manage compliance for these carriers.
VoIP carriers offer subscribers a low monthly fee for nationwide calls and discount rates for international connections.
Major traditional carriers like Verizon Communications and AT&T Corp. have launched VoIP offerings to match services offered by independent start-ups like Vonage.
Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that 17 percent of North American phone lines will be replaced with VoIP lines by 2008.
-- Reuters
[ I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance ] -- Isaac Asimov
I currently use Vonage, and I can tell you this. At $15 per month, I'm willing to give up a little to save money. Before Vonage I was paying $50+ a month for my local/long distance carrier. And that $50 only gave me a few added services. Now with Vonage I have every option service under the sun (three way calling, voicemail, caller id, etc etc.) I don't plan to do anything illegal, so if they share some info about me I'm not that worried. Then again, I wasn't aware that they had complete free reign over my informtion, so I do plan to write some letters asking them to change their policies. I think overall though, just like anything else, you have to weigh your own concerns over privacy vs cost and make a decision that works for you.
VOIP is becoming a big business. If you don't like one provider, try a different one. NuFone is a good one. It works extremely well with Asterisk too.
> i'd hat to see what British Telecom comes out with when this (eventually) hit's
> the UK.
Is that a tin-foil hat? Certainly sounds like one.
*ALL* phone companies will *always* work actively with the government. This is just them covering their back so you don't sue them if any legal action against you fails.
One good point is that you can use your phone number everywhere in the world where you have a fast internet connection.
I guess in the future it will not maky any more sense to talk about prefix related with the geographical location. But that future might not be very close.
In other news, for those of us using Mac OS X and Safari-- remember, whenever they give you obnoxiously long terms of service to read, use the "Summarize" service.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I currently use packet8 VOIP service and pay 19.95 a month.
The plan allows unlimited long distance calls in the USA and Canada. International rates are often 2 cents per min.
I usually make a lot of long distance calls per month and save at least 50 dollars a month now using VOIP.
The service includes all the features anyone can ask for included in the 19.95 monthly fee.
A lot of people have been wary of the sound quality, so far I have been unable to tell the difference between my VOIP service and a regular landline.
Overall I am happy with the service.
I just canceled vonage after two years of service. Their quality of service has gone to shit. They charged a $30 sign up fee and they charge a $40 cancellation fee unless you can somehow provide the original manually and packaging with the unit. What a rip off.
In Britain, ISP's are required by the government to retain e-mail and web data on all their customers so that the police, members of parliment, your local counciler etc. can access this data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) act.
In order to do this, they spend money on storage costs because they're required to. That it is "bad business practice" is neither here nor there, they have no choice, because the government noted that it was "technologically feasible" without considering was it "right" or "wrong", only that it could be done, and that the ISPs "could" retain the data.
Given that VoIP is likely to be regulated in the US, and probably falls under the RIP act in the UK, do you not think that is at least conceivable that the US government may require the companies to retain the data, simply because someone may suggest to them that it is technologically "feasible"?
The ways of gods are mysteriously indistinguishable from chance.
These are the 'restrictions' they're talking about. What they're saying here is that if you're using their equipment for criminal purposes, and if they know about it, they have the right to terminate your service, call the cops, and tell 'em what they know. I don't see how they have a lot of choice about this: if they did anything else, they'd open themselves up to all sorts of liability.
But it doesn't mean that they're going to monitor all your conversations or drop the hammer when you call your bookie. According to their privacy policy:
They also tell you in their privacy policy that they might use your data in ways you might not like: i.e. tell the cops who you are and where you live:
This should come as no surprise to anyone, and any phone company would do the same thing. But what the phone company can (and must) do is well established in both our culture and our laws. Vonage, which for many purposes would probably prefer not to be considered a phone company, is offering a relatively new kind of service, and they really need to make these things explicit.
There's a lot of pressure on the FCC right now to regulate VOIP providers and make them make their networks easily tappable by law enforcement agencies. That's not entirely unreasonable... you don't want drug dealers and terrorists to have an untappable, portable, fast, cheap communications system with fixed cost long distance to boot.
Our role as citizens that have some understanding of the tech involved is to make sure our representatives know that for tapping purposes, law enforcement should treat VOIP just like POTS service. Essentially, they should have to jump through exactly the same hoops in order to get permission to tap VOIP that they do to tap POTS or cell service.
I find the word 'authorized' odd. The previous clause said 'required'. As though they'll do it if they are allowed, not just when forced.
In the US, the Homeland Security Act gives the government the right to both tap your telephone and monitor email:
Under this Title, information on private citizens' credit card purchases, telephone calls, banking transactions, and travel patterns could be compiled and used to assemble a "profile" which might mark innocent people as terrorist suspects if their "profile" matches that of a known or suspected operative.
Privatizing this is the next obvious step. Big Brother is watching.
The other thing that I've found disturbing (about Vonage in this case) is that they can (and do!) change their prices without warning.
I just happened to notice that their international call rates from Canada to Asia and Europe went up the other day -- still only a few cents per minute, but 5c/min --> 8c/min is a 60% increase! -- and they didn't mention this to customers (not as a note at the bottom of the bill, not as a note on their website, no notification at all).
I belive such terms would be considered "unfair/unbalanced" according to EU regulations. Hopefully we wont see this in Europe.
"...you don't want drug dealers and terrorists to have an untappable, portable, fast, cheap communications system with fixed cost long distance to boot."
Um, how exactly are drug dealers hurting me again? Selling a product to willing buyers at a price point determined by supply and demand. Damn capitalist pigs! Oh, wait...