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AT&T Silences Criticism in New Terms of Service
marco13185 writes "AT&T's new Terms of Service give AT&T the right to suspend your account and all service "for conduct that AT&T believes"..."(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." After cooperating with the government's violations of privacy and liberties, I guess AT&T wants their fair share. AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service."
AT&T silences YOU!
[]
...your ISP does not have the right to censor you or limit your access based on what you have to say so long as it conforms to any applicable laws.
.. why give them your money? Stupid is as stupid does.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Right before they're installing Sandvine to screw their internet customers over, perfect timing!
Let them try disconnecting a landline telephone line in mid winter in East Coast to a house which has an infant in it.
Laws exist that prevent disconnecting landline AND electricity which is used to power heat to any house in New England states which has an elder or an infant in it.
Let AT&T just try it.
You would see the full weight of law and the CT Supreme Court falling upon it.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
AT&T blows.
Come and get me yo +++ carrier lost +++
AT&T hasn't learned anything from their monopoly days as they seem to headed in that direction. I guess they are just taking the cue from this piss poor Bush regime that doesn't think twice about trampling our rights.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
This isn't censorship but a value added service on AT&T's behalf. If someone is complaining about AT&T obviously they're unhappy with their service and so AT&T saves them the customer the hassle of calling and cancelling the service by simply cancelling it themselves. This is a great service on AT&T's part (no more having to wait 1 hour on hold to talk to a person) and I can't see how anyone could complain about it.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
That reminds me of the modem rebate crap that I just had to go through with AT&T last week. Since the special rebate sticker that i'm supposed to affix to a postcard was accidentally left out of the box I have to request one by phone. Unfortunately the tech told me that there was nothing that she could do until my account had been with AT&T for at least 3 months. Something about a grace period to make sure that I'm not just signing up for service to get their crappy dsl modem for free after rebate.
So to get this rebate I have to wait 3 months, call AT&T customer support then wait an additional 3 to 4 months for the rebate to arrive. Thats seven whole months before they have to give the rebate back. And you know what would suck even more? If they canceled my service I wouldn't ever get [error: connection to host lost]
I recall their shitty Worldnet dial-up service being worse than AOL's. Whoops! I just violated their terms of service...good thing I dropped them like a bad habit years ago.
So just show that it was THEIR behavior that damaged their reputation that you were talking about and you are off the hook?
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
..with fewer ISP entities controlling access to the net, it's much easier to stifle dissent during any "emergency". I wonder if tha(dialtone)
If AT&T starts policing content, then they have proven they have the ability and resources to police their network.
So, now the fun begins, since they have proven they can police their network, they now have to respond to any illegal activities or risk a lawsuit.
AT&T cooperates in wholesale spying on the American public without a warrant, then goes back to Congress and asks for immunity from lawsuits. Now they slip a "no criticize" clause in their user agreement. Reminds me of Microsoft, only worse. When did dickish corporate behavior become the new standard? I must have missed that memo.
The interesting question is whether corporate behavior is just a more visible mirror of the increasing lack of civility in every day relationships? Because when I think back to times when even corporations still behaved with a modicum of civility and tended to err on the side of the customer, I realized that the general level of decency at all levels of interaction was higher.
When it comes to AT&T a whole new generation is learning why we broke them up in the first place.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
As a practical matter, I would expect to see these terms on business accounts (where free speech is arguable) and less on home accounts (where it is not).
I suspect AT&T knows they'll run afoul of the public utilities commission if they try to do this kind of the thing with a POTS telephone line.
AccountKiller
I mean, the company's logo is the fucking Death Star and even George Lucas is powerless to sue them into not using it. I'm not surprised they're prosecuting thought crime. I'm assuming that they'll be feeding pirates feet-first into industrial shredders and give the pureed results to their slavering army of uruk-lawyers.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service."
No, they shouldn't. There are worse things in life than loosing your Internet service, and I expect this to stand up neither in Courts of Law, nor in the Court of Public Opinion.
I really don't have a problem with AT&T DSL service since I got it two years ago. Comcast is a different story.
When I tried to explain to the service rep that the problem was on their end, the service rep "accidentally" deleted the cable modem info from the system and I had to wait two weeks for the system to purge itself before the modem info could be added back in. The technician verified that the problem was on their end. On another service call, it took a month to convince them that I couldn't get Internet access because the problem was in the street box. When a technician finally came out, it was a part that another technician installed backwards in the street box. Go figure.
But my choices for high speed internet are pretty much limited to Comcast and AT&T (BellSouth). So it's really a question of which evil empire I'm more "comfortable" with or am locked into by service agreements.
We are the 198 proof..
I'm not from the USA, but don't you have something that allows freedom of speech and expression in your constitution or something? Wouldn't this make AT&Ts clause unenforcable?
This is ammunition that we can take to our congressional representatives as evidence that the telcos cannot be trusted with the Internet. AT&T could not have given us a better weapon in our fight for network neutrality regulation.
Given the quiet lobbying campaign by certain telcos over their cooperation with government we certainly think the public company AT&T really respects our privacy and opinions :)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/22/1655239
with their efforts to try to get immunity. Based on the way the FBI under ex-AG Gonzalez treated everyone else, they probably threatened to expose something else AT&T had done in the past and shut down their business. So some manager decided to "follow orders" and let the FBI have their way.
Then it turns out (oops), that the FBI themselves get busted for the spying activity and AT&T is left holding the civil liabillity bag. I _almost_ have sympathy for them because there were so many other companies that stood up for their customers that show us how it should have been handled. Their handling of the spying is just another symptom of the monopoly mentality: screw the customer if it can make us some money.
We are the 198 proof..
I hate all cell phone companies. Including AT&T. They try to rip you off for every penny you have. I can go on all day about horror stories with the phone companies. I hate them all! AT&T has no right to remove my service just because I talk bad about them on Slashdot and other websites. That's ridiculous! (yes, I am an AT&T subscriber)
This sounds kind of bad, but think about it. If you sold John a box of apples and John then goes around telling everybody that they were rotten. Then he comes back and buys another one. Why should you have to do business with him?
AT&T isn't restricting your right to say bad things about them, they are simply saying that if you do, they don't want to do business with you anymore.
Now, perhaps if you can argue that they are a near monopoly, they shouldn't be able to do that. But if you have a choice among half a dozen other providers, I don't see a big problem. In particular, if they cancel the contract, you're out of it anyway--better than being stuck with a provider you hate for a couple of years.
(And if you made the mistake of buying a locked phone, well...)
I think AT&T's behaviour is absolutely disgusti*#3&!g@.#*** NO CARRIER ***
"A nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it." - Churchill
Is anyone really surprised? This is the same company which is against Network Neutrality. The simple answer is to simply not to buy or patronize any AT&T or Southwest Bell services if at all possible.
]
The bigger picture is that this is yet another one of those corporate slippery slopes.
The technique is straightforward. A huge company with vast legal resources will create terms of contract that are annoying, but just a little bit less annoying than the transaction cost of replacing that company with another one. They've annoyed you, but like a frog being boiled in water, you figure you can live with it. Pretty soon all of the company's competitors are doing the same thing, and now you have no other recourse, even if you wanted to go through the time, expense, and hassle of switching.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
If AOL did this it would finally be possible to end your service over the net.
Please, everyone get their facts straight. The constitution limits the government's powers. It says nothing about this sort of conduct between two private parties (a corporation and an individual).
Now, that being said, a corporation only has the authority to exist with limited liability for the shareholders because the people via their elected government, grants them that right.
It is the right of the people, as given in the constitution, to create laws, via their elected representatives, that prohibit a corporation from having this sort of conduct.
The question here is, is there or is there not a law that prevents this behavior by AT&T. If not, work to enact one. If so, sue.
Again, the constitution limits government power. It does this primarily by limiting the government's power to those powers specifically enumerated and no others. As an additional emphasis, the "Bill of Rights" was added to the constitution specifying some particular thing that the government is explicitly prevented from interfering with (e.g. Freedom of Speech).
Many of the founding father's felt that the "Bill of Rights" was a mistake as it left the impression that anything not mentioned in the Bill is a power/right reserved to the government when in fact the opposite is true.
Kind Regards,
Gerry B.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
yes they oversell without having the necessary infrastructure, yes most of their services are shitty, but i can curse and swear about them and TO them wherever i want (even on the phone) and even high courts in turkey order turkish telekom to cut uncompetitive practices. hell, even turkish telekom dns'es update themselves like in 30 minute intervals - change a .com domain name's nameservers in enom, voila - not 30 minutes pass before t.telekom dnses pick it up and show site from new place.
america, land of the free. or was land of the free. why are you people are putting up with this kind of shit there, and not rise up and put an end to that i dont know. you have overthrown the strongest monarchy of the times at 1776. you should be able to topple a bunch of cash greedy bastards.
Read radical news here
This is really just intimidation. If they get away with it, they've won.
Let's get Mikey to try it first...
AT&T still blows.
Posting from an AT&T connection, shut down my service if you want to guys!
AT&T, taken apart decades ago because of their abuse of monopoly power, has not learned how to compete in a free marketplace and, thus, must go back to their orginal business model: hateful monopolizing. Perhaps some of you remember or have seen reruns of Lily Tomlin's wonderful ATT operator.
The main problem with having a president who lies and suspends constitutional rights is that the public, by example, are led to believe lying and bullying are OK. "Gee, the president makes it work for him...."
This is the famous Bully Pulpit that the first President Roosevelt talked about.
To give a more specific example of this principle, when former president George Herbert Walker Bush complained publicly that the Japanese government was trading unfairly with the United States (this was before the Tokyo stock crash) several Japanese tourists were attacked and beaten on the streets of US cities.
We need a president who loves truth. Otherwise, the US has more to worry about than Ma Bell.
Of course, Ma Bell is bad enough....
disclaimer: I am an ATT customer in CA. rethinking my subscription to their service.
But wait -- that leaves me with using ComCast....
"Do you promise to covet propriety prosperity posterity and never hurt the state say what?"
What?
"Take the stand..."
The judge would look at the contract, laugh, and say:
ATT - get a fucking life you idiots. DISMISSED! NEXT!!!
"Yes your honour. Next is The case of World v. GW Bush..."
And the judge smirks - "Another slam dunk...I might get to play some golf today if this keeps up..."
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If we fold, there will be no damn phones. AT&T. We're tired of taking your crap!
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
Government pays off telecom with $200bn.(nudge nudge, wink wink. You don't really *have* to roll out the hardware, guys.)
Government gets telecom to install snoop switches everywhere. Not just when they need a tap, but you know, *proactively*. Telecom has to "want" to do it and they do.
Government doesn't say anything about bandwidth, universal access, net neutrality or EULAs that go against the Constitution. Meanwhile other countries (all buying U.S. hardware) roll way ahead in phones, fiber, online privacy laws, online video and film, etc.
Look, it's a pattern. Reminds me of Microsoft and the Government too. Wonder how much they gave the government for the same purpose, huh?
It isn't easy to see the pattern until years go by, or to do much about it. But having this system and leaving important things to such corporations is why the U.S. is, I'm sorry to say, beginning to suck. However I did just rent two cheap servers in the U.S., because there are still cool U.S. geeks. When you complain though you have to realize you get what you pay for. In this case, you paid for the kind of AT&T and Comcast that you have.
Conceivably it would be possible to have good companies that do what the government wants, unless perhaps the government slyly applied massive pressure to turn them into the kind of companies that can get bought off, but it would appear that the financial system prefers jerks. The only way out would seem to get a lot of shareholders mad.
Just in case you didn't know either....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandvine
could this possibly be a way for att to protect themselves from a scenario where someone is pretending to be att and misrepresenting the company?
of course, if this isn't the case, thats some fucked up shit.
In light of the ibrick event, what else can you expect from the exclusive service provider of the iphone?
The value of having internet service is not the same thing as the value of "their" service.
EDGE sucks!!!! :-D
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
This is only to attack spammers and botnet owners. ... And maybe terrorists, definatly not people who critize AT&T. Why does everyone hate AT&T for trying to protect us?
See the parallelism with the usa government?
[NO CARRIER]
...and thanks for taking the time to write that.
It pretty much sums up why we have such incredibly bad prez candidates on both sides (Ron Paul excepted).
Well, damn. Glad I'm switching to RoadRunner. Not exactly voluntarily, but if AT&T is pulling this kind of shit, who knows what they'll try next.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I'm on AT&T and I have the following to say:
AT&T is run by a bunch of child-rapers. They have systematically sabotaged The Algorithm. AT&T is the one responsible for the XB360 Red Rings of Death incident, Wii shortages, and the PS3 sucking. They are Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. They are the company that charged 25 cents a minute for long distance when their cost was pennies per minute. They broke blue boxing and red boxing. They were responsible, in part, for Kevin Mitnick's abortion of justice. AT&T mines Google's data and they Do All Evil. There are currently two AT&T employees playing with my genitals and liking it and wanting them instead of "Papa Bell's" tiny dick.
You hear that, AT&T. You suck. Try and silence me, you ass-fuckers. Robert Marshall 17 Goodwin Street Springvale, Maine 04083 There. Everything you need to litigate if you have the balls, you cock-gobblers.
If history has taught us anything, it is that companies - regardless of original intent - always construe the meaning of contracts in the manner most advantageous to the company.
This clause may not be intended to be enforced against individual users, but as soon as a customer becomes critical of AT&T and starts costing them money, the company lawyers will find this clause and silence them.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
only to those who own it
(Ben Franklin: Freedom of the press belongs only to those who own one)
The obvious , practical solution is for someone to create some sort of "open" community owned ISP. Until that is done, corporations like ATnT will behave according to thier DNA: profits before all else; complaining about that is like complaining that piranhas are vicious
Is their a group that can put together a community open source isp ?, perhpas using some sort of next gen wimax, you need a super router every mile or so ? (just speculating there)
> The first is the "libertarian" viewpoint in which the free market is a magical solution
> to all problems and government intervention is the source of all evil.
This is close to what Smith thought. Of course he was smart enough to realize that monopolies endangered the free market and would probably have supported competition laws. Thus; Microsoft would have split up by the DOJ if there was even any pretense that the US were a market based economy. Certainly all the hand waving about "capitalism" whenever Microsoft anti trust troubles are being discussed is misinformed nonsense.
AT&T has a reputation that can still be tarnished?
I thought the whole spying on their customers, proposing tiered internet so they can charge everyone on the internet who even shoots a packet across their infrastructure, hostile tactics, and poor customer support as of late did that already.
Hey, AT&T violated their own TOS, they should disconnect themselves!
Would do us ALL a favor.
I'm not sure I like the new and glorious tiered internet world to which AT&T and Verizon are inviting us
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Another trend I've noticed is people for some reason keep criticizing Bush, Cheney, and the various other people who run this country. And yet they *still live here! Hopefully Patriot Act 2.0 will take care of this problem.
(/sarcasm)
How does your line of reasoning deal with the "or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries" language? If you continue using AT&T "service" you obviously shouldn't be allowed to express negative things about any of the other companies they do business with.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I'm not sure that's being interpreted correctly, but I think the wording is broad enough that it could be interpreted that way, which is a problem.
However, the rule says <i>conduct</i>. To me, this means that if your actions (only including, not exclusive to speech) are damaging AT&T's reputation, they can cut you off. What sort of conduct would damage a carrier's reputation? Harassing another person pops into mind immediately. "Why doesn't AT&T do something, are they just scumbags?"... well, now they can. Representing themselves as someone associated with AT&T? They get dropped. There's a bunch of cases that could be at work here other than "AT&T sucks."
Something needs to be done to stop the growing trend of laundry-list TOS agreements that amount to "we can kick you off our network any time we damn well feel like it"
Agreed. These contracts sound like the megalomaniac dreams of a 3-year-old: We can do what we like. You have no power.
Steve Jobs decided to tie the iPhone to AT&T (actually SBC with a new name), and now the company is awash in bad publicity. (See the title of the AT&T web page.)
...I've been wanting out of my contract with them! How far do you think I have to go?? Because apparently going on about the EVERYTHING wrong with the company isn't going to do it...
Well thank At&T Lawyers for this further corrosion of your human rights. Lawyers are the person pushing this stuff. The Country exist for the Lawyers and the corporations they create and not for the citizens anymore. This is really pretty petty.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
I read the new Verizon service agreement. They're allowed to terminate your cell contract if you use harsh language to a CSR. Also, you agree that any dispute will be mediated by their 3rd party. Meanwhile, the first whiff of an exigent circumstances letter from the government will compel them to illegally (read w/o FISA approval) give over all your information. Sounds fair.
We need to come up with a model which can replace this whole sector of the economy, and we need to shop it around to presidential candidates. Something's structurally wrong when corporations can get this out of control. It's not just a matter of tweaking a regulation here and there. Telecom is as broken as the US healthcare system - which is to say it works in some places for some people, but the major firms involved will happily do any amount of damage to their customers if it serves short-term, short-sighted profit. Not that there's no virtue in profit; just that it's important that the game be set up so that the vices of profit don't predominate over the virtues. Profit is not the only value. It doesn't even maximally serve the value of profit for profit to be the only value. When sectors of our economy start pursuing profit as if it is, they are broken. When something's that broken, sometimes the efficient thing to do is to tear it apart and refactor that entire part of the system.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I, for one, welcome our new multi-tiered over lords
-- Sig under construction...
While I'm not a AT&T customer anymore, It smokes me they would stoop to this level. However, they can't stop NON-AT&T customers from passing on the crappy service info or creating a AT&T Suks.com website.
I used to have bellsouth, however the underground cables are falling apart, and will never be replaced.. The static on the lines was so bad, i could never get better than 28K dialup connections. Thank god for broadband now - no more bellsouth~!
So AT&T reserves the right to suspend your account and all service "for conduct that AT&T believes"..."(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." Obviously AT&T should suspend ITSELF, since there is no such "right" as that, and trying to reserve such a "right" obviously damages the name or reputation of AT&T!
Political speech? You're sorely, sorely mistaken. Next time try actually reading the words of the first amendment and not taking what some loony tells you at face value.
FC Closer
Well, if you read the ToS, they already have that covered a thousand times over.
> They ought to have developed less-inflammatory wording.
Not to mention terms that haven't been ruled unconscionable before!
Just to prove my point, per the ToS, you agree to their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) (it's item 13 or something, it's pretty far down the list and the AUP has all the good stuff), which states, among other things:
(Emphasis added.) Not to mention this:
When the two are stuck together like dogs, what then? Where's the constitutional bucket of water?
/which/ dog has his teeth in my ass. When most of my life is dictated by contractual agreement and administrative law, most of it to my detriment, i'm not making distinctions. The situation is a corruption of both constitutional ideals and capitalism; this mongrel resembles neither so the distinction is lost anyway.
Then the media shows you a cute fuzzy puppy but soon enough you've got a pit bull with its teeth in your ass.
Me, i don't give a shit
Bite Me
Yep, that is about it.
(now where is that post as coward button, argh !!!)
Once upon a time, a soon to be mommy and daddy loved each other very much (the lust was strong as well as the drinks)
When all of the fuss began about AT&T and their privacy policies, I dropped them as my phone carrier even though they are the local monopoly on land lines (I now use a VoIP line who charges about 40% less with no limitations on long distance). This re-affirms that decision. Although this is certainly a bad thing for the net, I think it may be too little too late. We are guaranteed freedom of speech and the right to assemble by the first amendment. That doesn't carry over into the business world. Sure, you can stand out in front of a business on the sidewalk waving a sign, etc but set foot anywhere on their premises (including a parking lot) and you can be arrested. People generally don't gather at government buildings/ property (where the 1st Amendment is applicable) but in the marketplace, which is traditionally a public arena (think Socrates). In other words, to reach the public at large is much harder, if not impossible. Sure, you can wave that sign on the sidewalk, but people just drive by you and don't have to hear what you are saying. This also acts as another way in which corporations are set up as a tyranny (see: Noam Chomsky) rather than any sort of free or democratic enterprise. Hopefully, the net can stay free and set an example for the real world and roll back some of the limitations we actually encounter in our lives outside of a glowing screen.
I wish they weren't such dicks when it came to, well, being dicks. Their service in my area is quite good and is cheaper than the alternatives. It'd probably be more effective to push congresspeople to pass some neutrality legislation than to try and organize a boycott; nearly everyone can understand the benefits of neutrality laws, but only the people with poor service would really be interested in a boycott.
Isn't AT&T the Exclusive iPhone Carrier in the US?
But thanks for playing.
...I'm glad I switched to Sprint several years ago.
You gotta hand it to the AT&T lawyers for knowing what the government and the people will put up with. Personally, I have Charter running the cables here and Verizon, always ranked #1 in customer service, as a cell provider. Maybe people should use that as a measure of what phone they get, instead of what Paris Hilton or Steve (hand)Jobs is peddling.
What do you call 3500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.
-Unknown-
Hang all the lawyers!
-William Shakespeare-
Don't worry, though. According to Marx, Hyper-Capitalism is followed by Socialism, then Communism. Look at Europe. They are mostly in the socialist phase. The US just tends to be a bit slower than everyone else. C'mon, we look at Forrest Gump as a hero!Seems like a really easy way to get out of there NAZICONTRACT with no early termination fees.... (now if only verizon would start this too)
I just cancelled today. And now that I did I can surely say that if their parent company thinks they can deliver reliable television over ADSL lines they have to be fucking cheap asses. I will not support such a company. With products such as the slow ass EDGE network they are a joke on what this country was founded on (United States that is). Where's the innovation? Good riddens.
When Telkom SA were owned by SBC (Now AT&T, surprise surprise) they slapped one of their online critics (www.hellkom.co.za) with a 'hate speech' lawsuit worth (then) almost 1 million US dollars http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/internet/2004/0408111546.asp?S=Legal%20View&A=LEG&O=FRGN
Telkom eventually dropped the case (a year later and after SBC had sold its shares in Telkom), but the action goes a long way to show where AT&T's attitude to freedom of expression really lies.
anything at&t gets its foot in it, becomes a mess.
Read radical news here
... don't buy AT&T? That sounds like a good solution for those who disagree with their TOS.
Given that they are not a monopoly, I think it's within their right to set up contracts the way they want. Before you think this is a Trolling comment. The other side of the coin is why would anyone in the world with other companies to choice from, be willing to sign that contract?
I certainly wouldn't. Let's hope this gets' some real main stream press.
http://www.hawknest.com/
This comes suspiciously on the tail of apple's latest update. By threatening its customers, at&t can effectively punish those iphone users who stand to damage their flagship phone's reputation or call attention to the way their sordid covenant has been destroying the platform. Other people have said if you dont like at&t then switch, but this wont be an option for people who want to continue use the phone they paid 600, then 500, and now 400 dollars for. The obvious message here is: we don't give a shit about our customers, and we don't want to hear their feedback. Or more likely, we don't want real customer accounts of their experiences to threaten our stock price. If this isn't against the law it should be. Its anti-competetive and creates a tangible threat against free speech.
anonymous because I don't want them to rob me of the use of my phone
So does this mean that restaurants also now have the right to sue someone when they post a negative review on Citysearch? I didn't like my hamburger at McDonalds...whoops, I better not say anything online for the fear of getting sued for defamation! Yikes!
You, like a regrettably large number of people, are managing to ignore minorities when you discuss the supposed "civility" of bygone eras.
Ask a black man, even in New York or other northern areas, how "civil" the past was.
Further, if you go back to the late 1800's, you enter the Robber Barron era, which was hardly a high water mark for corporate good behavior.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Isn't it time we moved to mesh networking, bypassing the telcos and ISPs that want to control content and communication?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I disagree with how the parent (and OP) read the provision. The use of "conduct" says to me that the provision is so that they can cut off users who are taking actions that make AT&T look bad by association. For example, if a user were to host the NAMBLA website via an AT&T line. If somebody came along and alleged "AT&T is hosting NAMBLA, therefore AT&T supports NAMBLA" then AT&T would get to cut off the account. Of course you and I know as /. readers that hosting a website doesn't imply endorsement of it, but to the 80% of the country that doesn't read /. they might think that AT&T was somehow directly involved.
There are reasons to be concerned about AT&T retaining a veto over actions of that type, but it's very different from AT&T silencing criticism about its own service. Being paranoid about guilt-by-association in a contract that we've never even seen used to actually cut somebody off is a far cry from silencing those who would fairly disagree.
Couldn't happen at a better time, since I fired AT&T a couple of weeks ago and went with Earthlink for phone and internet service.
Yeah, no company is perfect, but I'm convinced AT&T is Evil.
Hyperic Community Manager
In Verizon's FIOS agreement:
... to damage the name or reputation of Verizon, its parent, affiliates and subsidiaries, or any third parties"
"You may NOT use the Service
So not only can't you criticize Verizon - you can't criticize anyone.
as in att has their heads up theirs - and i'm posting this from an att account.
- js.
Too much egg & chips.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Why is this tagged as censorship? If you don't like the terms of the service, don't use their service.
Say a corporation e.g., Exxon-Mobil comes along and pays AT&T a few million bucks a year. Can AT&T add them to their contract and cut their customers' service if they piss off Exxon-Mobil?
Very interesting comment.
Just where do you get "political speech" from in :
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
They also have verbage in section 12 about "not publicly sharing site, or 'hotspots'", and its pretty confusing to me, does it mean I can't share the ATT 'site' VIA a open wi-fi? Or I cannot BE a open wi-fi???
But to drive the issue home as another poster stated, to WHICH competitor do I turn, as there are NONE? AT&T BOUGHT UP Bellsouth.
Now the net is so deeply entrenched in school and work, it would be difficult to work without it. Schools have started putting all my kids stuff on their sites. If work didn't block every single dam website and email I could just us the net from work, but thats not possible.
Hijacking the net will soon become big business...
They Live, We Sleep
Well, that cute little ditty does leave out the part about Verizon, formerly Bell Atlantic (or Hell Atlantic). And of course Qwest... so yes, in place of one bad monopoly, we now have three... and in the process, destroying the one good part of Ma Bell that really did contribute a lot to the US of A, Bell Labs...
Nah, you post like that all the time. You just forgot click the 'post as AC' checkbox.
Your right to freedom of speech is NOT unlimited, it can't by. Why? Because if it was, it'd infringe on other rights. I mean lets say you are over at my house, chattering about something. I decide I want to go to bed. However you want to keep exercising your right to free speech and just keep talking to me, refusing to leave, refusing to let me sleep. See why that doesn't work?
The way I like to put it is "The right to freedom of speech does not imply the right to be heard." In other words you are free to scream all you want about whatever you want, but you aren't free to do it in my living room, I can kick you out if I want. You are free to write whatever you want, but you aren't free to do so on my web forums, I can kick you off. You are free to express your self as you want, but you aren't free to do so at work, they are free to fire you.
That's what people mean. Your free expression can have consequences with other private citizens, and the first amendment does not protect you from that. It can't as to do so would be to infringe on those other citizen's rights. What it protects you from is the government. The constitution is a document relating to the government. It lays out what powers the government gets to have, and places limitations on those powers. So it does say that the government can't come and arrest you for saying something they don't like.
Your rights are not unlimited, you are not king. Your rights end where mine (and everyone else's) begin. You'd do well to learn that concept, or you are in for some real nasty surprises later in life.
Well I guess AT&T is taking note of how the USSR was ran, and the Mafia is ran. Does anyone know if the Board of directors, Chairman or CEO are communist or work for the Mafia? Will...
If these terms are not challenged (and they make Microsoft's EULAs seem tame by comparison), then you Americans will finally have sold yourselves into corporate slavery. I imagine that the ToS was written by some lawyer who believes that the law is not worth more than using as toiletpaper to wipe his ass with. He must know that the ToS would not stand up in court, but they wouldn't have written them unless they were pretty sure that they could buy the courts or at least extort them.
My guess is that AT&T is using their cooperation with Bush's wiretapping by the NSA to be able to write their own laws, as long as they don't challenge anything the Cheney machine says. Anytime there's a legal problem, they simply point the courts and lawyers to their agreement with the NSA.
So who, exactly, is in charge in the USA?
"for conduct that AT&T believes"..."(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."
It was ATTs own idiotic practices & policies that damaged the name & reputation of ATT for me. Fuck them in the earhole, i wouldnt subscribe to their service if it was the only game & town & only cost 5 cents.
Horrible, nasty, mismanaged, vile, despicable company... there simply arent enough expletives to describe my loathing for them.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
It also applies to freedom of the press. If you are posting something on the internet then you are publishing it. Technically you could be considered a member of the press because you are now actively engaged in the reporting of events, this is the power of the Internet, anyone and everyone can be considered a publisher and member of the press without a huge outlay of millions of dollars of cash for presses and paper and ink and such. And if those events are negative to AT&T they're saying that they can cut your account because of it.
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+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
AT&T: Celebrating their victorious overturning of the Sherman Antitrust Act. On another note, it would seem that they're following Microsoft's dubious example. Isn't there some weird clause in their various product EULAs about not criticizing their products? I thought I saw some piece of news about that on here a while back.
I'm sorry, but that's not how the American legal system works; it relies upon Case Law when determining how laws are interpreted. Note this is Law 101 stuff—something one would learn the first week of the first year of law school.
There is enough case law regarding the 1st amendment to put to rest the right to yell fire in a crowded theater: you dont have that right—it doesn't matter what words are written on the dusty parchment.
Now go yonder and gather knowledge (google is your friend):
Yeah, right.
Speaking of which, where can one get a complete list of AT&T affiliates or partners?
Is there an easier way to get these other than a piecemeal, and time consuming, paper crawl assembly from an assortment of sources like divisional reports and Google searches?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
It's getting to the point that people are going to have to back to sending smoke signals, using mirrors, etc. just to be able to communicate!
...other nation in the WHOLE World!
BTW: Off topic, but the United States has more people in prisons, per capita, than ANY... _ANY_
Point: All this UN-warrented eavesdropping/spying (after a "president" was PUT into office...you know what I mean!), organizations like the RIAA running rampant, Sprint shutting off service to its customers who file "too many complaints" with them and now THIS (not to mention all the other nefarious activities of gov and biz) is ALL coming from a Country that is SUPPOSED to be a FREE Democracy.
What's WRONG with THIS picture?
How long are United States Citizens going to put up with such behavior?
If they don't put a stop to it, how long before this behavior is spread to the rest of the World?...OOPS! It already HAS in Iraq and is going to in Iran soon.
Is the rest of the World going to just lay down and TAKE it?
Go ahead AT&T...
Your phones suck. Your phone services and packages all suck. Your internet service to residential homes suck big time!!
Ok go ahead...!!! cut my internet access...
Oh wait; You can't do that. One; you don't have the right to squelch my free speech and two; Your not my ISP so go jump in a lake!!