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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."
...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.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
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
Come and get me yo +++ carrier lost +++
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]
.. why give them your money?I don't live in the states, but aren't they the sole provider in many areas?
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"; aren't there laws about unfair clauses in these kinds of contracts.
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
why give them your money?
Oh right, we busted up the phone monopoly decades ago, now if you don't like your phone service, YOU CAN MOVE TO ANOTHER FUCKING STATE.
But hey, if they cancel my service over this, I can demand phone service back thanks to their franchise contract and universal access laws. If they charge me to turn it back on, I'll have the city council going over that contract to see what can be done about getting some real competition in here.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
So what, things were good under the monopoly, lawyers got paid lots of money to manage the break up. CEO's are getting huge bonuses for having the business acumen to re-assemble the parts. The way the modern economy works is all derivative. Long ago (think post-depression) companies that were stable in stable markets were seen as fantastic opportunities. In the past 15-20 years people became enamoured with making a quick buck by flipping (houses, stocks, anything) -- it's the derivative that matters not the fundamentals of the investment. Money is made when the derivative flips sign -- so the goal is to create a turbulent market with lots of derivative changes. Ever wonder why big oil companies offer the following logic: 1) when crude goes up, pump prices follow lock step (we have to buy expensive oil to replace the oil you just bought) and 2) when crude goes down, pump prices tail off slowly (the crude that made the product you just bought was expensive). It's all about working churning the market. The loser in the churn is the 401k/403b investor who cotributes on a market agnostic schedule. At&T is just churning on a much slower time scale.
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 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.
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..
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.
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
I was just hoping that this applied to AT&T's wireless service; it sounds like the perfect "get out of your 2 year contract free" scheme.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
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....
In Libertopia there will be three cable providers for every municipality, and they'll offer the same policies and fees because competition is just too hard. If you don't like it you can become a billionaire and buy your own cable franchise. Don't like it? Then you must hate Thomas Jefferson, and therefore you hate the United States. Why do you hate America, Statist?
You should probably watch this ( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2004785759717366066 ) if you think that Ma Bell is still busted up.
Use a connection conforming to rfc2549. You don't need AT&T for that. ...
OK, the latency may be a little high
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
That's because AT&T was Sodomized By Cowboys.
Sad thing is I've heard this phrase from more people inside the company than outside (usually from baby bells "acquired" by SBC).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Moderators: you absolutely need to mark this Insightful
.I work on order and billing systems for telcos and have some insight into this... and was just thinking the same damn thing. Colbert makes the point so much better than I could. Glad you posted this.
:) )
Monopoly? We got no steengking monopoly. (apologies to 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre'
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Here's how I ab/use my own power as an IT professional.
People look to me for advice on any range of technical issues. While I rarely, if ever, say "don't do this" I will state factual reasons not to do something. For example: iPhone -- you cannot change your own batteries. I don't say "it's 'restrictive'" or limiting or anything people will not understand. I will tell them things they can easily identify with.
So in this case, I would say, "according to AT&T's TOS, you're not allowed to publicly complain about the quality of your service or the size of your bill!" "Not allowed to complain" is something that will register with anyone. So I plan to just tell people... with AT&T, you lose your right to complain. That will strike HARD against the consumer's heart.
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.
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
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:
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.
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.