AT&T Issues Formal 'Censorship' Apology

netbuzz writes "AT&T this evening has issued new terms of use language that it hopes will cap a firestorm of protest over the original version that appeared to give the company freedom to pull the plug on anyone who had the temerity to criticize AT&T or its affiliates. Whether you believed that threat to be real or overblown, the new language would seem to put the issue to rest."

Comments

Re:Capitulation == Confirmation

[Aladrin]

No, the 'threat' that was 'quite real' was to AT&T's profits. They realized that people would not shut up about this and it would impact their bottom line. They felt the need to put it to rest because it was a non-issue and there was no reason to keep the wording as it was.

All I have to say to that is: Yay internet!

Before the internet, disseminating knowledge about a company's possible practices (as opposed to their real ones) was very tough. Now, in a matter of hours, millions of people can be informed of a looming issue and speak out about it. This sounds like 'down the with corporations!' speech, but it's not. It's good for them as well, as they can now judge their customers attitude in hours as well, instead of implementing a disastrous policy and finding out a year later that it has ruined their business.

Re:AT&T respects your right to free speech

[Gr8Apes]

Actually, their "job" as an ISP is to provide you service. Nothing more, nothing less. Even regarding kiddie porn, as despicable as that is, it is not their job to censor or even monitor that activity.

I know it's a novel concept in our brave new world, but a service provider should just provide service, and leave the monitoring/policing to separate entities whose responsibilities cover those aspects. Otherwise, we all might as well get chipped with GPS locators and audio/video recorders and route everything to your nearest friendly community overlord.

This is a very Good Thing.

[dpbsmith]

This is a very Good Thing. I actually believe AT&T when they say "We feel that the clarifying language better reflects our actual long-held policy." There's a very poisonous process that occurs when unwritten de facto policies are formalized. Very often, the de facto policies are fairly reasonable.

When the policy is written down and the lawyers get involved, they fence in a square mile in order to protect an acre. This is done because they don't think anyone will notice and there doesn't seem to be any real cost involved, so it's just prudent to include a fat safety margin around the "real" policy. As long as the same personnel continue to administer the real policy there's no big problem. The damage comes a few years later when new people come in and see no reason not to use the whole square mile.

Consumer pushback makes it clear that there is a cost involved in being overprotective, and that there is a benefit involved in having a written policy that simply spells out, rather than overextends, the real policy intention.