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Marriot Back-Pedals On Wireless Blocking
gurps_npc writes "Marriot Hotels had been illegally blocking Wifi hotspots in Nashville. They thought they owned the airwaves inside their hotel and wanted to charge guests for using them. They claimed to be 'surprised' they were breaking the law. Other hotels have complained to the FCC, asking for permission to do it legally. The FCC had fined Marriot $600,000 for their actions, among other things. They have stopped their illegal blockage, in part because of public backlash and in part because the government told them they were criminals.
How uneducated do you have to be on the topic to believe this? Me? I'm betting some corporate lawyer said they could probably get away with it.
If they sincerely believed they owned those airwaves and could do this, they utterly failed to ask anybody who knew anything about it. That level of ignorance is either epic, or willful.
I think this is more likely a case of them knowing damned well they weren't supposed to, hoping they'd get away with it, and now pretending like it was all an honest mistake. At some point, someone said "ummm, guys, we can't legally do that" and was told to STFU.
I'm glad this got smacked down. And I wonder if movie theaters and other venues won't get caught doing the same thing.
It's about time corporations got reminded they aren't the ones defining what's legal and what isn't.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Major hotel chain pushes envelope of profiteering, quietly acquiesces with government after their cashcows start mooing, remains blameless, faultless in the eyes of stockholders.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"synthetic fuel", but hey, what's a bit of ambiguity between friends?
"was that wrong? should I not have done that?"
yes, its now a meme. a lame meme, at that.
but marriot became 'george' and acted all surprised when they were called out on their shit.
damned big business. in the US, they think they are god. and we pray to them, LIKE they are gods.
in a way, its our own fault for giving too much power to big business.
will we ever learn????
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
They would have been more effective if they had used the "camel's nose" approach.
For example:
Marriott executive wants hotels to be able to block Wi-Fi so they can make $$$.
Marriott executive knows it will be politically stupid for Marriott to boldly ask for a rule change.
Marriott executive has a friend who runs a business that makes outdoor equipment that runs on or near WiFi frequencies.
He suggests to his friend that the friend should ask for an exemption to allow businesses that use this "unlicensed spectrum" as an integral part of their business be able to actively block interfering signals, and use that company's non-controversial setup as an example.
Marriott executive uses paid lobbyists to provide draft FCC regulations that are quietly bot obscurely worded in such a way that if they take effect, hotels will be free to jam guests.
If his plan succeeds, he wins today.
If the wording of the proposed exemption is tightened up so it only applies to his friend's company and similar environments, he has still succeeded at eroding the existing rule. He can repeat this process, gradually eroding the rule until finally he gets what he wants.
The only way he will lose is if either the FCC starts rejecting the proposed rule changes outright or if it takes so long that WiFi as we know it becomes obsolete before he gets what he wants.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I think the Slashdot editors actually take pride in screwing up.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
First of all, 100% agree that there should never ever be any blocking of a WiFi signal.
What should Marriott do if they find that there is a WiFi broadcasting as "Marriott Guest" inside their building that is not one of their connections (i.e. imitating the service they provide to their guests but presumably set up that way to facilitate some nefarious purpose?)
- Are they permitted to take action?
- If not, who can?
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
I’m always amazed and disgusted that higher end hotel chains charge for things like Wi-Fi while cheaper players give it away for free. Similarly it seems only fast food restaurants even offer Wi-Fi and free at that. This has always seemed backwards to me. Why do the people charging more nickel and dime to death for every little extra thing? Evidently since they start with a less cost sensitive clientele so they think (rightly it seems) they can get away with it. I may have answered my own question, but it still seems wrong and unaccommodating. When you get your low cost room from priceline.com, the big players still let you know they really don’t care to be very accommodating to you.
Letter To Iran
They can wrap the building in tin foil. I'm sure that's perfectly legal.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It was probably some IT dude that volunteered that he could buy some cheap equipment off of Alibaba that would block WiFi other than their own and word worked it's way up the clueless chain of command.
Said IT dude (or dudette... naw, they'd know better - anybody watching IT Gang?) probably got a nice weekend getaway as reward - and then fired after the shit went down.
Just to play devil's advocate here.... The newer wireless access point products on the market like the Cisco Meraki gear encourage this sort of behavior, with their "Air Marshal" capabilities. They're designed so you can actively DoS wi-fi routers that appear on your network, "unauthorized".
They even have an extra radio integrated in them for this functionality, separate from the ones handling the rest of the wireless traffic.
So arguably, the I.T. folks who set this whole thing up for the hotels might have done so with intentions of preserving the integrity of the paid hotel wi-fi network, and not because "they mistakenly thought they owned all of the airwaves inside the hotel building". It's still an asshole move to set something like this up, IMO ... but a hotel chain that charges for its wi-fi could reasonably argue that it's in its best interests to ensure its paying customers get a good, reliable signal with it. That could be compromised with hundreds of guests setting up their own APs in their rooms.
We're not talking about them blocking wireless hotspots in guest's rooms, that's just overlap. The issue is that they were blocking wireless hotspots in convention space they were renting out, so the individual conventioneers and exhibitors HAD to buy the Marriot wi-fi package at exorbitant prices.
Don't care who is managing it, or what they're calling themselves right now; it's still a Gaylord property.
The fed still needs to make an example out of them and Aaron Swartz a few execs in charge of the property; and remind corporate America that ignorance of the law is no excuse.
I stayed at that Marriot 6 or 7 years ago. They wanted an exorbitant amount for their wifi (I believe it was $9, and I only needed it for less than an hour). I was able to sit next to a window and access a neighboring hotel's wifi to do my quick email check. Maybe someday they will grasp the concept that by charging a reasonable price they would get more sales, and thus overall make more money off of their wifi.
Better known as 318230.
How much did they make doing this. if it was more then $600,000 it was well worth it.
that'll keep out those pesky wifi hotspots radio waves. then they can wire an antenna in from the outside and everyone will be forced to use their service.
It's basically a denial of service attack which is a criminal offense.
Its Marriott (two t's not one)
Marriott only manages 5% of the properties under their brand, "Hotel Partners" manage the majority of the properties. Their statement seems to leave to door open for the franchise locations...
Those people are just collateral damage in the war to maximum revenue. They say you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and you can't make yacht-buying CxO salaries without breaking a few laws. So a few people get bad wifi. They should just be richer so they can buy better service.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I know I'll get hammered for saying I was in favor of what marroitt did but here me out. When I travel, I'm terrified of connecting to hotel networks. I don't really know which of the many possible SSIDs that I see are the bonified hotel network. And since it's normal on Hotel networks to do some DNS redirection to hand you off to the authorization site, you really can trust anything that masquerades in that way either.
Thus I'd gladly forego the trivial inconvenience of them blocking my wifi tether to my phone network (to bypass the hotel network), if they would take charge of their airwaves and block all rogue hotspots in their building. Peace of mind.
Now the litmus test here would be, are they just doing that to make money by taking away something I have for no extra cost (my cell phone tether) or do they really have my interests at heart in squelching hostile wifi hotspots? And that's really easy to figure out. If they allow short range blue tooth then they haven't taken anything away from me. I can still tether just as well as I could before.
So I gain peace of mind and lose nothing of value if they do this. Why should I not like this.
Now I suppose someone could dream up an edge case like say a LAN party or maybe some poor-mans meeting where one fellow is hosting all the others on his little conference room server. But that's so narrow a case ocmapred to the millions of guests all of whom just want a safe casual ad hoc connection to check their e-mail. Lan pary people too cheap to pay for the connection can probably figure a workaround anyhow.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Outside of branding, Marriott has little control over the day to day operations of their franchises.
They have stopped their illegal blockage, in part because of public backlash and in part because the government told them they were criminals.
(1) The Government telling a large corporation it's behaving badly toward regular people and (2) that corporation caring - that's adorable.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
So can Marriott start building its hotels in giant Faraday cages and passively prevent all those pesky signals from entering their hotels?
The key thing here is that they're not just blocking inside the hotel, they're blocking outside the hotel as well as radio is a broadcast medium.
Its utterly antisocial of them to do this as it will affect other properties near their hotel and they should be completely ashamed of themselves, along with the hucksters that sold them that shite.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
I'm pretty glad the FCC is putting the screws to this, jamming any radio signals is not right...
That said, if anyone ever does encounter this again don't forget there's still a way to tether - just follow the base definition of the word, and use a PHYSICAL tether. On an iPhone at least (and I imagine the same is true for Android) you can tether over USB also if your phone is connected to a computer via a cable.
That doesn't help tablets of course, but most people tethering would probably be using a laptop.
Bluetooth is also a possibility but I think it would be slower than USB.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can't take the sky (or my wifi) from me.
Great point, I can confirm an iPad can pair with my iPhone over bluetooth. As you confirmed though, it's kind of slow... good enough for email and light browsing though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
SEC. 333. [47 U.C.S. 333] WILLFUL OR MALICIOUS INTERFERENCE.
"No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this Act or operated by the United States Government"
If it's legal for them to interfere with my WiFi, then I assume it's legal for me to interfere with theirs.
...because Marriott owns the air in their hotels. Why should pesky freeloading guests expect to breathe for free? Damn Commie bastards.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Bonified ? I don't understand why people need to show they know fancy words when their spelling is not even in the ballpark of the thing. So instead of "bona fide" maybe just write "real" next time ? works just as well.
kthxbye.
How funny! They thought they owned the airwaves.