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Marriott Fined $600,000 For Jamming Guest Hotspots
schwit1 writes: Marriott will cough up $600,000 in penalties after being caught blocking mobile hotspots so that guests would have to pay for its own Wi-Fi services, the FCC has confirmed today. The fine comes after staff at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee were found to be jamming individual hotspots and then charging people up to $1,000 per device to get online. Marriott has been operating the center since 2012, and is believed to have been running its interruption scheme since then. The first complaint to the FCC, however, wasn't until March 2013, when one guest warned the Commission that they suspected their hardware had been jammed.
$600k seems too small for such a large company. This is very sinister behavior. It would be like Burger King parking unmarked trucks or actors playing drunk bums in front of McDondalds' drive-through lanes to block customers.
Table-ized A.I.
"The first complaint to the FCC, however, wasn't until March 2013, when one guest warned the Commission that they suspected their hardware had been jammed."
How many guests would have the technical knowledge to tell if a device is being "jammed" or simply "isn't working" or that "cell reception is bad"?
And when the hotel manager is done watching you fuck your prostitutes, he can swap out the camera in the wall with an AP.
What happens is people willing to pay $250 per room per night will be willing to pay an extra $25 or $50 per day for their internet. Someone that is not willing to pay even $100 per night, probably will not pay extra $5 or $10 for internet. So the cheap hotels just make it free as a way of getting more budget customers.
It's the same for everything. If you are willing to pay for delivery or room service, you are willing to shell out for a tip too. If you go for buffet breakfast, then most likely no tips are expected.
The more you pay, the more is expected you will shell out in ancillary fees. That's all. The rest is bullshit.
I am very sure it is not the top management of Marriot that dreamt up this scheme. The top honchos of most companies are so technologically inept they need tech support to turn on their iPads. It is most likely a local operation. The local manager lamenting not showing any revenue increase despite installing the WiFi access point server. And from the ranks someone down realizing jamming is possible. After that it is simple making bonus and making numbers for the local team that set up the scheme. The top guy has collected his bonus and will find another job. The mid level guys who knew it would be fired and have to look for a new job. The tab is paid by a big faceless corporation. This is likely to happen again.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Plus... often it's other people's money.
Business travelers just charge it to the company.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
If the FCC doesn't have the authority under current law, what agency should regulate situations like this (assuming for the sake of argument that Congress intended for such situations to be regulated)? The Federal Trade Commission perhaps?
What you were doing was arguably more ethical since you weren't making money off of people using the service, but if it happened today you would be denying other companies (namely, cell phone carriers who sell wifi hotspots and who charge by the byte) the right to conduct business.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The ISM bands are not unregulated. Operations in the ISM bands are not protected from unintentional interference, but the FCC most certainly has the authority to, but chooses to abide by agreements with the ITU deferring to ETSI.
This is exactly what the FCC should be regulating, and not the content of TV or Radio broadcasts. This type of intentional disruption of service should be policed by the FCC.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
...WiFi operates on UNREGULATED spectrum, which means anyone can use, and anyone must accept interference from other users... and we did EXACTLY the same thing that Mariott was doing, for just that reason. ... we also investigated the legality of it, and the conclusion we came to was that it was perfectly legal since it was on unregulated spectrum.
According to that logic, I can come with a router backpack and prevent all users from connecting to YOUR university network. Well, it's unregulated, right? You should accept the interference and you cannot ask me to leave (in fact, I can be on a public place to cause you enough of a headache, so all is a fair game).
How did Google get charged exorbitant fees for briefly recording unencrypted wi-fi traffic from their street view cars while everything they did was on an unregulated spectrum?
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
I'd call it malicious but that's an opinion word. Nobody, however, can deny that it was willful. They admitted they did it and said they think it's an okay thing to do; that is clearly willful. That's fine, they are being honest: they violated a rule which has the force of law because they don't think that rule should exist.
They can lobby for a change to the law/rule, and until then they should obey the law/rule. My only problem is, like always, the fine is 100x too small.
Is the $600,000 going to the government or the people that were affected? Could Marriott be in the crosshairs for a class action also?
Passionately Indifferent
Yeah that's one way.
Another way is to have laws and fines that are sufficient to actually stop abuses, instead of burdening courts with remunerating for abuses after the fact. I prefer this way.
For instance, yeah my family could sue the maker of the tainted drug that kills me, or we could just have the nanny state certify drug manufacturers and then people don't have to die nearly so much in the first place. I think that is a better world so that's the one I support.
ISM is very much regulated. Get a new legal team.
ISM is unLICENSED. That means that you don't need a license to operate in that band as long as you obey the regulations in place. Those regulations cover radiated power and intentionbbal interferance (which is MUCH different than unintentional interference.
If your baby monitor causes trouble for my WiFi (or vice versa), that is unintentional. OTOH, if you get a baby monitor and a parabolic antenna with the intention of interfering with my WiFi you are violating regulations (but it may be hard to prove). If you get a WiFi and send deauth packets to my hardware it becomes easier to prove willful interference. If you change channels when I change channels it is very easy to prove.
The Mariott owns the property, and they have a right to dictate the use of their property, so they have a right to control what WiFi equipment can be brought into and used within their premises.
While I can see why a business owner would want to control WiFi on their property, the fact is they do not have that as a blanket right under US law. For example, as a business open to the public, they can't say AT&T cell phones may be used but not Verizon or Sprint since they have a contract with AT&T. Nor could they say you are prohibited from using your radio to listen to any radio station but theirs. BY LAW, they do not control the airwaves. They are allowed use to the airwaves under the rules and regulations set forth by the US Government and its duly authorized regulating bodies. They may be able to put usage wording into contracts that they could then enforce in the courts if the user violated them, or even kick them out of the conference, but they can not do a vigilante move by killing all radio signals they think must be from someone violating the contract. And that already presumes a legally binding contract. The public owns the airwaves, not the hotel/convention center.
OK, Econ 102. They get repeat customers using their hotel instead of a competitor's hotel. If the Rewards incentive wasn't there, many of these customers would not use the Marriott properties as much as they do, maybe even rarely or not at all, and so Marriott's gross income would be lower, and therefore presumably net income. This means these customers, by using the Marriott chain hotels as much as they do, are providing a higher revenue stream for Marriott, and it is in Marriott's financial interest to provide benefits, like WiFi at no additional charge. The "charge" for the WiFi is built into this increased revenue stream, since the traveler could at times have chosen a cheaper non-Marriott hotel, and also since the WiFi (or wired) expense is a sunk expense, namely it is already paid for and whether the room is empty or the room has a guest in it using the wire the cost to Marriott is essentially the same, give or take potential future expansion needs.
That explanation wasn't very clean but I have a project due and didn't have time to edit it much, but hope you get the idea.