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Advocacy Group Files FCC Complaint Over Verizon Tethering Ban
Hugh Pickens writes "Cnet reports that the advocacy group Free Press has filed a complaint with the FCC that argues Verizon Wireless shouldn't be allowed to block tethering apps that let people connect their computers to the Internet through their phones' 4G wireless data network. 'This practice restricts consumer choice and hinders innovation regardless of which carrier adopts such policies, but when Verizon Wireless employs these restrictions in connection with its LTE network, it also violates the Federal Communications Commission's rules,' says the group. Those rules say Verizon 'shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice.' Google has made tethering apps unavailable through the Android Market for some phones that use wireless services from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, saying in May it did so at the behest of carriers."
Of course they have to charge extra for data over tethering. The screen on a laptop is bigger, morans.
They own the network, but they license the spectrum. The spectrum is managed by the government for the public good, and as a result, Verizon pays for the privilege, and they have an agreement with the FCC detailing allowed use.
I predict a respone that is a bureaucraticly worded 'Fuck you.' The FCC is fully bought and paid for, they already just let one of its commissioners take a blatant bribe from Comcast under the condition that they give them the ok to merge with NBC Universal.
They can do as they please.
People who tether are not harming the network that the carriers own. What is the carrier's complaint, and how does it square up with the Carterfone decision? At one time, AT&T charged extra for the "tethering" of the day, namely the privilege to use a modem on a phone line. It also limited modems to using acoustic coupler technology. Had this continued, had Carterfone not opened up the market to equipment in the customer's control, we very likely wouldn't have had home Internet access in the 1990s.
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>>>How would you like someone telling you how to run your business?
I'm a person with innate natural rights, not a Thing like Verizon. Being a thing, it has no more rights to privacy or self-regulation than a tree, a rock, or a building.
For that matter, It doesn't even have a right to exist, and government can revoke its corporate license at any time. (At which point verizon reverts to a private direct-owned entity, rather than a government-created entity.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If they didn't the mifi would go byebye
https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobilebroadband/?page=products_mifi
Which carrier allows this?
This is a market failure, no option for this exists.
T-mobile was once an option, but with the pending AT&T purchase it is not an option.
I will be leaving Verizon at the end of my contract, but it seems the best I can do is Sprint. Their coverage is not very good and what is to say they don't start to do similar things?
We need regulations forcing all carriers onto the same types of networks and that they all sell each other transport. This way competition can exist.
The problem isn't Android. The wireless tether apps were removed from the Market. There are already plenty of alternative markets. If you're saying that Android should support wireless tether out of the box, and that we need a fork of it in order to do that, that's also nonsense. The carriers wouldn't allow their phones to ship with that OS, and without them you won't be able to pay the people working on the fork. You'll have a handful of people doing it in their spare time and they'll only be able to support 1 or 2 devices, not the entire spectrum. (This is like CyanogenMOD, by the way).
There are plenty of OSS apps that do tethering. Google has no lockdown on Android, you can install out of market apps. Heck, CM7 makes all kinds of changes to android, CM7.1 adds the ability to block permissions.
http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/
It is GPLv3.
You might not be trolling, but you are quite uninformed.
Sprint allows this and their coverage and plans have been getting better and better for the last four years.
Right now sprint is doing everything they can to be the "Consumer Friendly" option, with unlimited text and data forthwith same price as Verizon and AT&T's more limited options.
Not a Sprint shill or anything. Just a satisfied customer.
What we need is the entire spectrum run by a single entity and the carriers just compete on service.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Verizon does have plans where people can tether without restrictions on the apps and devices. It is just separate from the mobile phone only plans.
Only 1 or 2 devices?
CM supports 27 devices officially, there are plenty more unofficial ports of CM for other devices.
Tethering using the USB cable...got an app that works fine there with Verizon DroidX. I can work very efficiently this way and make calls through Google Voice btw.
Sounds good. Unless the T-mobile deal falls through that is who I will be switching too. Even if it means I have no cell coverage when I visit my parents in bumblefuck PA.
I'm a person with innate natural rights, not a Thing like Verizon. Being a thing, it has no more rights to privacy or self-regulation...
Verizon is just a group of people and the equipment that some of those people pitched in their money to own. Do people stop having rights when they peaceably assemble?
If consumers don't like it, they can vote with their wallets.
Damn straight! I don't like any of the cable TV terms of any company so I don't have Cable TV! I don't like some of the terms of getting a Slashdot account so I don't have one. I don't like any of the terms of banks and credit unions - fees, sharing of data with third parties, etc... - and I .... well have bent over and took it up the ass. Because I have no power and everyone in the industry is doing the some goddamn thing. I shop and shop and every damn financial entity is out to fuck me.
When an industry acts in "concert", the only option to protect consumers is government regulation. Otherwise, it's endless lawsuits and we all know who benefits in the end.
I don't think this will make me any more popular around these parts, but this is a weak argument. Verizon isn't restricting LTE devices. They are restricting the connectivity for non-LTE devices.
I think the main problem is that so many people have been able to use it without having to pay, but now Verizon is actually enforcing the provisions of the contract. A backlash is predictable, but this FCC complaint just doesn't have legs.
The other argument I see quite a bit is that "unlimited data" means unlimited for any device you happen to own. It isn't. It's for the device you have contracted with Verizon (or AT&T, or whoever) to connect to their network. It does not extend to anything you happen to have in your pocket. I'm not trying to argue what should be or shouldn't be, just what is actually being paid for and delivered under the terms of the contract. You know, that thing that binds _both_ parties?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
There is no difference between a byte to my phone versus a byte to other device.
This is a boring sig
>>>Do people stop having rights when they peaceably assemble?
Of course not. The People inside Verizon retain all of their rights to speak, think, publish, but Verizon Itself - the corporation - has no more rights than the building or parking lot in which the people sit.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
If you're saying that Android should support wireless tether out of the box,
I know several people who have android 2.2+ phones, and theirs had wifi tethering out of the box. 3G network in, wifi tether out. If it isn't working "out of the box", someone removed it from the box.
>>>How would you like someone telling you how to run your business?
I'm a person with innate natural rights, not a Thing like Verizon. Being a thing, it has no more rights to privacy or self-regulation than a tree, a rock, or a building.
For that matter, It doesn't even have a right to exist, and government can revoke its corporate license at any time. (At which point verizon reverts to a private direct-owned entity, rather than a government-created entity.)
According to the law, Corporations have all the same rights as a natural person. Of course, when they poison, maim, or kill people, they do not go to jail, every move a corporations makes is to secure more money, they have no sense of morals or qualms about hurting people, they have billions of dollars to throw about in legal cases. There is no equality, Corporations rule the world as a fascist dictatorship.
It would be nice to trim them down to size, but that isn't going to happen any time soon.
Or to make it simpler, just make some nice OSS apps that destroy Google's lockdown on Android so that we who pay $70-90 a month for a 3G/4G cell plan (individual, not family plan) can rightfully use the service we pay through our teeth for ?
The irony to this question is that Google has done a lot to subvert the normal lockdowns that had been a staple of the US wireless telcom industry.
Which is ironic because it's was Google who got the 'shall not deny, limit, or restrict the ability of their customers to use the devices and applications of their choice' clause in the LTE spectrum in the first place to prevent carriers from denying people's ability to use Android devices.
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
If Verizon and Google are agreeing to restrict the market, it sounds like a antitrust conspiracy under the Sherman and Clayton Acts
Only if Google does it just for Verizon, no?
So far as I know, Android Market has customization provisions for all cell providers, not just Verizon. It may be that Verizon is the only one blocking tethering apps, but AT&T could probably do so as well if it wanted, so "competition" is not affected here.
Only when they limit their liability by use of a fictional person commonly referred to as a corporation. If you want full rights, you should take the full risk a natural person takes.
I would note that technically sprint charges an extra 10 bucks for allowing tethering.
In an environment where the carriers tell the FCC what the rules should be, or where companies buy legislation ... the 'market' has already failed.
Why does everyone continue to believe that the 'market' is this self-regulating entity which comes up with optimal solutions and gets corrected by competition and other factors? It simply doesn't work that way, and it never has.
The 'market' isn't there to serve you or me, it's been set up so the major players hold all of the cards. It sure as hell isn't 'fair'.
*laugh* So, you think regulating the market into uniformity and proscribing what they can do will lead to competition and fairness?
Your beloved market doesn't work that way, and the carriers would balk and say they're not willing to spend the money or not be differentiated by being incompatible. Seriously, if someone on the FCC can rule there's no problem with a merger ... and then take employment with the beneficiary of that merger ... do you expect any regulation to not be stacked in favor of the big players?
It's an idealized economic model ... it doesn't operate the way people think of it, and it never has ... it doesn't have these wonderful self correcting measures, and regulation/legislation only distort things ... and, really, even if it *did* work that way, the big players would game the system to get an advantage.
Years of watching this kind of stuff have convinced me that this 'market' and 'competition' of which you speak is a myth. Start out with a fair one, and you'll get cartels and price fixing within a short period of time ... and competition won't naturally create better solutions, it will create better solutions at exploiting you.
People don't have perfect information, they don't make rational informed choices, and everybody is out to fuck everybody else over. All subsequent assumptions are distorted ... and, occasionally when we see the markets tank, we get to see how badly the underlying system has been manipulated so that someone gets rich at everyone else's expense. Selling off bad debt as if it was AAA rated investments, for instance ... one big shell game. A Ponzi scheme on a massive scale. And, yet, its proponents continue to claim that it will fix everything.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My sister and her family will not pay for wireless data services. They are with AT&T. Recently She was swapping her SIM card from her dumb phone to an OLD Blackjack they had purchased years ago. AT&T automatically started charging them NOT for wireless data but for using a "smartphone"! How can they justify any of this?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
...but with the WebOS phones from Verizon, the tethering app is included... by Verizon... for free!
It seems to work in Europe where all the carriers are on GSM and switching providers is as simple as a sim card swap.
All the mobile companies do it, unfortunately.
Why is voice data less expensive than any other data? Or, for that matter, why is data I view on my smartphone any different than data I pull down with my smartphone and then display on another device?
I don't understand what's the big deal. In the grand scheme of things, I know blocking tethering apps may be against FCC rules, but I'm not betting the carriers will actually follow those rules. But here's what you CAN do:
Step 1. Get an unlockable, rootable phone. ALL carrier phones are locked, but some are easily rooted and all of them can be unlocked for a small fee. So you can still get a subsidized phone, just be careful which one you pick. As a rule of thumb, never pick up a brand new model, but almost every single 3-6 month old model is rootable.
Step 2. Install a custom ROM like Cyanogenmod.
Step 3. Use the tethering capabilities built into your ROM, without the need of any extra apps.
If you can't follow these steps, then find friends who can or pay somebody to do it for you. My gf, who doesn't have a clue how to unlock and root phones, is using CM7 nightlies on her HTC just fine.
*phbtbtbtb* Europe, who goes there? ;-)
But, seriously, did they all choose to use that infrastructure (ie because of Nokia or something), or were they told they had to?
Lord knows I like my GSM cell phone ... when I want a new phone, I swap my SIM card and it works great. I can see being able to change carriers that easily would be great if you needed to.
It just seems like the carriers in the US have deliberately chosen not to use the same technology as everyone else ... but, that could just be perception. They certainly have no interest in actually making things work any better for the consumer.
Europe might have more actual competition, whereas the US seems to have a bunch of regional monopolies who don't want to play well with other children.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This, a thousand times this.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I filed an FCC complaint last month regarding AT&T charging for tethering -- basically the same complaint. As expected, the FCC didn't do anything except give my contact information to AT&T so that AT&T could contact me to tell me that my contract basically allows them to impose whatever restrictions they want.
Obviously I realize the contract sucks, which is why I filed the complaint. If I have a 2GB plan, I should be able to do whatever I damn well please with those 2GB of data.
Hopefully this group (and the voices of others) will have more success. You can file a consumer complaint online here: http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints_tcpa.html if you're so inclined, though be aware that the FCC will give out your contact information to your carrier. Also false/anonymous, complaints probably won't help.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
That's certainly how it should be, but that's not how corporations are viewed here. They're legally considered people (even though the legal justification for that is a bullshit throwaway line written by a corrupt asshole of a judicial clerk and should have no legal standing)
Recent supreme court decisions have found that corporations enjoy human rights, such as freedom of speech and the right to donate to political campaigns. They're basically people who can't die, and who have no morality because their only function is to make as much money as possible.
It's screwed up, but that's the way it is right now.
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
can someone tell me why the same community of OS / compiler / OSS people can't come together, fork Android, and really just say to Google "thank you but no thank you, you've done good but you can't do anymore."
Already been done with the various ROMs and the AOSP. Besides, if you were to completely fork it, there'd be a lot of work maintaining compatibility with Google Android, otherwise you wouldn't really be able to load it onto most devices.
>>>According to the law, Corporations have all the same rights as a natural person.
Please quote which "law" you are referring.
Thank you.
(Hint: No such law exists so no point wasting your time.)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Agreed. We can't demand that government regulate everything.
Sure, but when Verizon has explicit agreements with the FCC after licensing the spectrum from their LTE services, is it not reasonable to expect the government to hold Verizon to that agreement? Or are you ignorant of the fact that Verizon made this agreement and is flagrantly violating it?
How would you like someone telling you how to run your business?
About as much as I like a service provider selling me an "unlimited" data plan, and then limiting how and how much I can use it. Sorry, but unlimited means unlimited. Either change the plan so it isn't called "unlimited", or change your use policies so I can use the data however i want.
"But this one goes to 11!"
>>>According to the law, Corporations have all the same rights as a natural person.
Please quote which "law" you are referring. Thank you. (Hint: No such law exists so no point wasting your time.)
A footnote in a supreme court decision about a railway tax case implied that Corporations are persons under the constitution. This is not law, however it has been treated as such for over a hundred years. Precedence dictates that it is now law, regardless of the original intent. If this were not the case, Corporations would not be allowed to buy the government. But they can. And since they have done just that, you can expect things to get much worse before they get any better.
Unlimited plans are available because carriers know that all the smart phones will not be accessing the net all the time. I doubt very much that many people will be watching movies or downloading torrents for hours at a time on a smartphone. If you get enough people doing this, as would happen if tethering was allowed, you would swamp the carrier network.
Yes the bits are the same but the usage pattern is much different between tethering and smartphone use. If you insist on tethering to unlimited plans say goodbye to unlimited plans. A tethers device can consume much more bandwidth than a smartphone.
PS to those who ask why pay for higher speed? Latency; a consumer wants to get information as fast as possible after pressing send. Smartphones are not receiving all the time but when they do speed is important.
Mod the parent up.
Every time this issue comes up, I see several posters make the claim that they are using the same amount of data whether they are using just their phone or tethering to your laptop. Then I sit there dumbfounded as this crap gets modded insightful and repeated over and over again. From personal experience using a Blackberry Storm and tethering for work purposes when necessary, the argument is complete crap.
While using just my phone, most of the websites I pull up are mobile versions that are a fraction of the size of the full versions. Other apps I use that go out to the internet pull the information in a mobile friendly format as well. The only real data hog on the phone would be Google Maps. I don't know what the data size difference between the mobile app and the normal site are, so lets just call those equal.
While tethering my laptop, not only am I downloading the full websites, but I may have multiple tabs open at once. I am connected to my corporate VPN, which has it's own data overhead, my e-mail client is open (Lotus Notes -- and yes my life sucks as a result) which given the aforementioned suckiness of Notes likes to synchronize massive amounts of data just so I can read my e-mail and calendar. My e-mails are also much more data heavy. While I receive the same e-mails on my phone, the giant attachments are rarely downloaded on the phone. These of course get downloaded regularly while tethered. I am much more likely to watch YouTube videos or Netflix while tethered (as long as the signal is good). YouTube is only occasional on the phone (for when I really want to watch now) and non-existent on the phone, and not just because there is no Netflix app for BB, but because I don't have much desire to watch a full length feature film on my tiny phone, especially if I could just whip out my laptop. And then there's the other random huge data downloads I might attempt on my laptop but would never do on my phone such as large software downloads (say an operating system). And while my laptop is doing all of this, my phone is still using it's own data in background.
Furthermore, it's not just the tethering the telecoms are worried about, it's the Wi-Fi hotspot features. Can you honestly say that having up to five devices connected to your phone uses the same amount of data as just your phone?
While eventually, we may get to point where all of the laptop exclusive functions I will happily do on my phone, we just aren't there yet. Don't get me wrong though, I would love for Verizon to include tethering as part of my data plan. The only reason I use tethering is because my company pays for it. And I'm not saying this advocacy group doesn't have a sound argument. All I'm saying is that this "it's the same data" argument is complete crap, and if you want to be taken seriously in this debate, you need to find a better argument.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
That falls in line with the idea that municipalities should own the utilities/fiber in the ground and ISPs/companies pay for the use of them. When the city lays new road or resurfaces an old road, bury a channel of electric, water, sewer, and fiber (and maybe coax?) and charge the companies that supply those lines for the upkeep. The channels should be big enough for some expansion based on the width of the road. Houses and or complexes would just tap into those lines via access boxes to supply their portion. Part of building a home would be having the city come out and place an access box in/under your front yard and you'd be responsible for lines going from there to your home. Apartment Complexes could tap into lines on multiple sides (depending on their outlets to city roads.)
Whichever provider can provide the best service from the municipal lines gets to route your traffic outside that grid. Provide multiple points of access in each subdivision of houses/roads. If a construction crew cuts a line, you get directed to the redundant line on the other side of the division. They just have to cap the pipe for water to force it down/from the other route and electricity would be fused at junctions in case it came in contact with a ground during the cut. Worse case scenario there is you lose pressure/power for a time it takes to reset the problem.
Of course, this only really works in highly populated locations and wouldn't really be cost effective in rural situations... but there are still options there.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The market isn't there to serve anyone. I, for instance, cannot start up my own cable company and provide service to a neighborhood because local government won't let me.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Maybe, since a company can be "too big to fail", an argument can be made that people can become "too big to fail" and thus taxpayer money must be spent to keep old 1 ton tubby alive!
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The [p]eople inside Verizon retain all of their rights to speak, think, publish...
Do they retain the right to act in concert with each other?
Let me put it another way. The people (people!) making this decision for Verizon think that the best way to allocate their limited resource (bandwidth) is to charge extra for tethering. You're in favor of the government telling those people (people!) to allocate the limited resources of a large group of people (the people who own Verizon) in a different way, one that may make them less money.
You presumably decided on your career based on a number of factors. For most people, two of them are "How much does this pay?" and "How little does this suck?" You can't do everything that interests you, after all, time is a limited resource too. Say there was a shortage of Wal-Mart greeters. Would you be OK with the government telling you that you had to spend a certain number of hours per day working as a Wal-Mart greeter, at what is presumably a lower salary than what you make now?
Didn't think so.
Verizon removed it out of the box. There is a tether application, but it extorts you out of, I believe, $30 a month.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
the FCC doesnt have a lot of say on what happens in a company. however, the FTC will spank a corporation when it's not on the level.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Welcome to the Verizon All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. There are only a few simple rules you have to follow:
You can make as many trips as you want to the buffet.
However, for each trip you much use the small plates that we provide for you.
When you get to your table, you may transfer the food from the small plate to a larger plate, however, there is an additional fee for doing this.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I have an interesting situation. My water utility sells me metered water for washing dishes, watering the lawn, showering, and other limited purposes.
The utility offers a Tasting plan for an additional monthly charge. Under this plan, I am allowed to use the water also for cooking and drinking. (Even though my water use is metered, and each gallon of water for cooking and drinking is delivered by the same pipes!)
Dear customer: our records indicate that you have been using water for cooking and/or drinking. Please upgrade your water rate plan to our convenient Tasting plan that allows for this usage. If you continue to use water for cooking and drinking, you will be signed up for the Tasting plan automatically.
I think the Tasting plan is just a fee that they made up. It isn't a service they provide. They just want more money from me. I've got a workaround of using a container to obtain water from another room for the purposes of cooking and drinking.
Some people shout: Theft of service! But what service? They're already delivering water to me, and metering it, and I'm paying for it, and its delivered by the same pipes!
Some people shout: but you signed an agreement and using the water for cooking and drinking is a breach of that agreement! Ask a lawyer about the term "unconscionable contract". Nobody in their right mind would agree to this if they had any actual choice in the matter. Just because they have the power and can force you into paying this ridiculous fee or doing without doesn't make it right.
I say that this Tasting "service" is no service at all, it's just a fee for delivering nothing at all extra to me. It's a case of the utility wanting something for nothing. Yet people seem to think it is somehow wrong to use the water I'm paying for for drinking or cooking unless I sign up for the more expensive Tasting plan.
In order to add legitimacy to their Tasting plan, the water company says that the Tasting plan is actually delivering something: it includes an additional 2 Gigabytes of water per month, giving you 4 total Gigabytes of water.
But what if I only need 2 Gigabytes of water and therefore my existing monthly 2 Gigabyte plan is plenty? The water company already charges $10 per extra Gigabyte of water I use over the limit. So if I used excess water, it's not like they wouldn't get paid.
Furthermore, once I sign up for the Tasting plan, they don't make any distinction between water used for drinking/cooking and water used for other purposes. I could use 3/4 of it for tasting, and 1/4 for bathing/dishwashing. Or any other split. Or all of it purely for tasting. So then if I paid for Tasting and used only 2 Gigabytes of water, which I already had paid for, then why did I need the Tasting plan?
I seem to be very confused about stealing water for tasting. Someone please set me straight.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
(Please note in the case of (1) the packet was from my mobile browser, and in the case of (2) the packet was from my laptop browser.)
If I have a 2 GB monthly data limit, which of the following activities will use more data on the network:
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It's as much their business as your contract with them says it is.
I use an antenna to receive 50 stations (~42 if you eliminate duplicates) from the surrounding area.
Not everybody gets that many channels over the air. My area gets fewer than half that, counting subchannels.
Plus syfy.com
I thought the online affiliates of the major scripted cable TV networks allowed only subscribers to watch. HBO sure does.
I don't see any reason to throw-away $1000/year on comcast.
Some people are sports obsessed. They see web surfing as a hobby in the same way that geeks see televised sports as a hobby. For example, my aunt's boyfriend would rather drop broadband Internet access, instead doing things like e-mail at work after hours, than drop ice hockey.
>>>Do they retain the right to act in concert with each other?
Of course.
It's called a Club, not a corporation (which is a government-created entity).
Also I find it weird you de-capitalized "people". Are you saying the People of the US are unworthy of being treated any better than a cat or dog or other lower case nouns? I capitalize it for a reason --- same reason it is capitalized in the 51 State and national Constitutions. It is from the citizens that power is derived, not from a king or nobility.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Ugh. Thank you, anonymous slashdot moderator, for deciding that not agreeing with my opinion is the same as me trolling. And I didn't even get bonus points for a George Carlin reference. Disagree != troll.
They are in the business of selling data access. Just charge an extra $10/GB (or whatever the market will bear) and be done with it, and quit lying to customers about having sold them an "unlimited" plan in the first place.
There is something seriously innovation-chilling about the company dictating what the source of the data is...
It's called a Club, not a corporation (which is a government-created entity).
It's not government created. It's government licensed, which is different. I'm a member of a few clubs that have a license from the government to operate the way they do. (As non-profit organizations, the clubs I'm referring to don't charge sales tax for things that they do. Without the IRS doing whatever it is they do to certify the club as a non-profit, this would be illegal.)
I'm reading a book right now by the coach of the New York Jets. They're a football team. (Gridiron football, AKA the one where the ball is 12 inches long.) Anyway, his checks are cut by a business organization called New York Jets Football Club LLC. This "club" makes a great deal of profit for its owner. This "club" sells tickets (to football games) and licenses merchandise. (They also partially own a stadium that they rent out and are part of a television licensing deal.) They "conduct football operations" (that is, they have the football team) to further the goal of making more money for the owner.
They call themselves a club, but they're a business. (Other buisnesses do this too. "Membership stores" which offer lower prices in exchange for an annual fee (like BJs in the US) refer to their customers as club members.) It's a meaningless distinction. If Verizon called itself "The Verizon Club," would you be happy?
Also I find it weird you de-capitalized "people". Are you saying the People of the US are unworthy of being treated any better than a cat or dog or other lower case nouns? I capitalize it for a reason --- same reason it is capitalized in the 51 State and national Constitutions. It is from the citizens that power is derived, not from a king or nobility.
Of course PEOPLE deserve better treatment than nouns. People are living (well, usually), breathing (usually) human beings who were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Nouns are just words to be used in order to further the speaker/writer's points. However, the word "people" is just a word. It doesn't deserve any special treatment.
Also, most people who capitalize the word "people" today* are using it to make the same political point that you are making. Those people (and you) are wrong.
*Yes, I know about the Constitution. The 10th Amendment says that laws pertaining to grammar (among MANY other things) are to be left to the states, or to the people at large.