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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.
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.
Even assuming that they were right, if they "Own" the air space in the hotel, they sublet that same airspace to me in my room so interfearing with my cell phone hotspot is still wrong.
Of course, I don't take pride in my screw-ups. It's actually Marriott, with two Rs and two Ts. *sigh*
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
/Oblg. Seinfeld clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
simple explanation: those that attend more expensive hotels are more WILLING and ABLE to pay 'screw you' wireless fees than us normal working stiffs.
also, those at big expensive hotels are often corporate fucks and those can just 'expense it', and not care.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Step 1 is to figure out if the WiFi connection is part of your network or not. There are devices that will do this for you.
Step 2 is if it is part of your network, shut down the port is it connected to. That same device can do this for you.
Step 3 is to escort the customer out of the hotel and deny them a refund due to a violation of the TOS, and possibly bill them additional fees based on the TOS if it were signed.
Step 4 is to create a blanket no WiFi access point policy. Using the equipment from Steps 1 and 2, you can pinpoint Rogue AP locations within a few feet. Once discovered, utilize the signed agreement with the hotel to perform Step 3.
Done.
I mean, obviously it's customer offensive, but if you want to ban WiFi to the point Marriott wants to, these are your options. Exercise them.
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.
Dunno if we "pray" to them - it's just that most folks are tech-ignorant and are preyed upon because of that. I noticed crap like TFA first-hand.
I was at a Marriott in ATL (okay, Alpharetta) in late 2013, discovered crap like this (yet they were more than happy to charge $14.99/day for access to their SSID), and promptly decided to change hotels after the 2nd day (I was too busy to swing it on day one). I spent the rest of the week (and my employer's money) elsewhere. I specifically mentioned the wifi shenanigans as a reason why I changed rooms (especially since the La Quinta down the street was far less expensive, the hotspot worked perfectly, and atop that, their wifi was free of charge.) Reimbursement was not a problem after I explained why, and the company I worked for at the time decided to take their future business elsewhere (as a tech company, network access ranks as pretty damned important...)
Vote with your dollars, and even if traveling on business, be damned certain that your employer is aware of why you're doing so, which translates into less money for the offenders. It won't be fast, it won't be easy, and inertia allows asshat corporations to continue their asshattery for awhile, but if the issue is important and broadcast widely enough, withholding patronage does indeed work.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
You hunt down the offending rogue SSID and eject the offender. It doesn't take much to triangulate the physical location... a couple of security guys carrying smartphones loaded with an app like this, and the rest is pretty simple.
What you do not do is play amateur electronic warfare (one, you'll likely lose that battle, and two, you run the risk of breaking stuff.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
They might legally include a contract clause forbidding installation of your own WiFi hotspot. They certainly could then enforce the contract clause, which might involve a penalty, might ban them from doing business with them in the future, might even be able to eject them from the space.
But they cannot violate Federal communication law as a technical means of "enforcing" the contract.
Put another way, you can (try) to enforce a no-pets ban in a store. (Of course, people will just bring their "service dogs", but that's another subject...) You can ask the customer to leave, you can call the cops to make them leave.
But you can't shoot the dog.
Hey, us corporate fucks have travel budgets to watch, too!
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.
Wow, I'm amazed they would charge their guests for wifi access. Even the cheapest, sleaziest, motels have "free" wifi. Are they the only hotel doing this? Reminds me of the time when some motels made their televisions coin-operated.
It varies widely across the levels of hotels, but there are some patterns:
The really sleazy motels generally charge for Internet (some don't even have it).
Stepping up to stuff like Comfort Inn, Econolodge, etc., wifi is generally free. Their customers are price-sensitive and are likely to be annoyed at being asked to pay extra for much of anything.
The next step up is the lower tier of business travel hotels, like Hampton Inn and such. They generally have free wifi, same rationale as the previous. However, many of them offer a premium service with higher bandwidth, perhaps a external IP, because some business travelers need it and will often pay.
The next step up is the higher tier of business travel hotels, like Marriott Residence Inn, Embassy Suites, etc., vary. Pretty much the same situation as the lower tier, but a higher percentage of them charge even for "basic" service. They nearly always have free Internet in their business center.
Luxury hotels mostly charge for Internet. Luxury hotels nickel and dime you for every damned thing they can think of, I suppose on the theory that if you're willing to pay $350+ per night for a room, you won't bother to look at the bill and notice an extra $50 per day in extra charges.
I don't often stay at "destination" hotels ($700 per night and up, usually), in fact my sample size is two stays at the same Ritz Carlton (the one in Half Moon Bay), but what I saw there was that Wifi was free again. Not, I'm sure, because they think the patrons are sensitive to the price, but because making them go through some hassle to get onto the net is unacceptable customer service and clashes with the bowing and scraping that is de rigeur in every other part of the experience.
All of this is in relation to hotels in the US. International travelers can expect it to be all over the place. I stayed at a fairly nice place in Zurich that didn't offer Internet at all, and a fleabag in Santiago that had outstanding Internet. That's not saying anything about Zurich or Santiago, either; different hotels in the same area were different.
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In the big corp I work for, there are lots of people who travel and we keep an internal review site for the hotels we visit. Free and working internet is the primary bit of information everyone looks for. If you don't have that, you lose business from this particular megacorp.
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