Hey -- if our competition wants to go overboard and slather Web pages with ads, I say that's great! Please, let them do it! It'd be promoting us as competition. Our ISP will get their customers in a heartbeat. And we'll only use this technique to send occasional messages that are of interest to our users.
how long do you think it will before other things, things much less useful to the customer, begin showing up there instead?
Never. No ISP in its right mind would overuse this feature. It would annoy and drive away users, or they'd just dismiss the message without looking at it. Our ISP would use it only for billing matters or notices informing users when we'd be taking portions of the network down for maintenance.
As an ISP, I find it very hard to believe that any ISP wouldn't be willing to e-mail a user at the address of his or her choice. And, no, we certainly have no reason to spam them. (I have never heard of, and can't imagine, an ISP that is not vehemently anti-spam.) The problem we do see, though, is that people frequently change their addresses without telling us. What Rogers is doing is a very elegant way to ensure that we're reaching the right user and that the message gets through.
Network neutrality means not using one's control of the pipe to disadvantage competitive content or service providers. For example, if you're a cable company that offers VoIP, network neutrality means not blocking customers' use of other VoIP providers.
Network neutrality does not mean that a provider can't "frame" pages (as do many providers -- especially those like Juno which provide inexpensive or free service) or send them informative messages via their browser.
Let's step back and take a dispassionate look at what Rogers is really doing here. They need to get a message to a customer. Like any experienced ISP, they know that there's a good chance that e-mail won't be read in a timely way, if at all. (We, as an ISP, find that our customers constantly change their addresses -- often after revealing them online and exposing them to spammers -- without any notice, and often let the mailboxes that we give them fill up, unread, until they exceed their quotas and no more can be received.) The Windows Message Service once worked to send users messages, but only ran on Windows and is now routinely blocked because it's become an avenue for pop-up spam. Snail mail? Expensive and slow... and the whole point of the Internet is to do
things faster and more efficiently than that. Display a different page than the user requested? Perhaps, but that certainly comes much closer to "hijacking" than what Rogers is doing. Display a message in the user's browser window (where we
know he or she is looking) along with the Web page, and let the user "dismiss" it as soon as it's noticed? Excellent idea. A wonderful, simple, unobtrusive, and (IMHO) elegant solution to the problem.
Now comes Lauren Weinstein -- known for drawing attention to himself by sensationalizing tempests in a teapot -- who has never run an ISP but seems to like to dictate what they do. Lauren claims that the sky will fall if ISPs use this nearly ideal way of communicating with their customers.
Contrary to the claims of Mr. Weinstein's "network neutrality squad" (who have expanded the definition of "network neutrality" to mean "ISPs not doing any
thing which we, as unappointed regulators, do not approve"), this means of communication does not violate copyrights. Why? First of all, the message from the ISP appears entirely above, and separate from, the content of the page in the browser window. It's not much different that displaying it in a different pane (which, by the way, the browser might also be able to do -- but this is better because it's less obtrusive and unlikely to fail for the lack of Javascript or distort the page below). The display can't be considered a derivative work, because no human is adding his own creative expression to someone else's creation. A machine -- which can't create copyrighted works or derivative ones -- is simply putting a message above the page in the same browser window.
It isn't defacement, because the original page appears exactly as it was intended -- just farther down in the window. And it isn't "hijacking," because the user is still getting the page he or she requested.
What's more, there's no way that it can be said to be "non-neutral." The proxy which inserts the message into the window doesn't know or care what content lies below. The screen capture in Weinstein's blog showed Google, but it just as easily could have been Yahoo!, or Myspace, or Slashdot.
In short, to complain that this practice is somehow injurious to the author of the original page is akin to an author complaining that his book has been injured by being displayed in a store window along with another book by someone he didn't like. Sorry, sir, but the merchant is allowed to do that unless he's signed a contract with you that forces him not to.
Nor is what Rogers is doing a violation of an ISP's "common carrier" obligations (even if they were considered to be common carriers, which under US law, at any rate, they are not). Common carriers have been injecting notices in
Rogers didn't edit the content. In fact, no sapient being was involved -- which would be a prerequisite for that. The proxy merely put a banner above the unaltered content. That's not editing, and so it falls outside the scope of Compuserve and similar cases.
Rogers didn't change the content of the Web page one bit. It merely put a banner at the top. Juno and other services have been doing this for years (a technique called "framing") and it's never been considered to be copyright infringement; it's not in this case either. And it's sure less obtrusive than a pop-up!
No Web pages were "hijacked" (an inflammatory term). Rogers merely put a message at the top of the user's browser window. If the user had been diverted to a different page, that would have been "hijacking." Doing it this way is a great idea.
This topic seems to be an example of a sensationalist (In this case, Lauren Weinstein, who seems to get a rush from causing a fuss) making inflammatory claim and then having it posted on Slashdot to produce a knee-jerk overreaction. Highly manipulative. And you've taken the bait! Fortunately, many of the other people posting here have actually looked at the screen shot, seen what was going on, and have recognized that the article and the page to which it refers are inflammatory and misleading.
I buy internet access from a small ISP. A guy provides DSL to a few hundred people. I dont think hes going to do this any time soon. When i lived with my mom she had Speakeasy DSL, i also dont think they would try something like this. I would expect comcast to try to pull this on its customers but thats why its worth paying a small premium to not support a heartless corporation who will make you pay in the end.
Actually, this is the kind of innovative idea you'd expect from a small ISP rather than a big one. It's user-friendly, unobtrusive, and effective, and it vanishes with a click as soon as you acknowledge it. It's refreshing to see a large ISP doing it. What's scary is to see Weinstein's overblown claims that it's abusive or is a harbinger of something horrible. It seems as if Weinstein and his "net neutrality" group are really an "anti-ISP" group that's attacking the very things which a small provider can do to make its service better than that of a big provider. They may not understand that they're promoting a duopoly... or maybe they do. Some of them work for very large cable and telephone providers.
Methinks someone had better walk a mile in his ISP's moccasins before trying to tell that ISP how to do business.
Many ISP's provide email. This in the obvious way to contact your customers. You don't need care about what email addresses your customers are currently using because you can always use the one you gave them.
This statement is the first sign that you have no experience as an ISP. The fact is that users often do not check the mailbox the ISP gives them, and sometimes do not check any mailbox regularly. E-mail is not a reliable way to reach a customer.
If customers don't want to run tools to tell them when they are about to exceed their limit that's their problem.
No. It's our problem (and our job) to provide good customer service with no effort or technical knowledge on the part of the user. That means being proactive even if the customer has changed computers; even if the customer has an incompatible computer; even if the customer has a broken computer. Remember, the ISP gets blamed for everything. This entire topic is a great example; it condemns an ISP for doing the right thing!
it's intrusive, it's a slippery slope to really unethical behavior, and it's possibly illegal (for the copyright infringement reason).
All alarmist and false claims. It's the best way I've seen to get the job done. Rogers deserves credit for implementing it.
But even then I don't think it's a good idea because it's only a matter of time before some marketing manager will decide it's a really good idea to use the same mechanism for advertising.
Hey, I guess that ISPs should block all P2P then. After all, some thief will decide it's a really good idea to use it to pirate music and movies, and start using the same mechanism for stealing.
There is a set mechanism: email. And if that's not sufficient they could easily write a little app to provided notification that could be run by users who are worried about exceeding their limit. There is no need for what they are doing.
As an ISP, I can tell you that there is no "set" or sure way of contacting a customer quickly. Customers frequently change their e-mail addresses due to spam. You can call, but this is expensive and intrusive. Users often change their numbers (especially cell phone numbers). And what if the user is about to exceed his or her download limit at 3 AM? Should you call and risk waking the household? Should you wait until the next morning and tell the user after the fact (which might cause him or her to claim that more notice should have been given)? We've tried a custom application, but people didn't load it because they feared viruses. Or were running a platform that couldn't run it. Or deleted it by mistake. We even tried the Windows Message Service; it worked only until pop-up spammers started abusing it. Frankly, putting a banner at the top of Web pages is a really good, customer-friendly idea.
This story was posted yesterday as "Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?", so this one is redundant and should be removed. It's also a misleading tempest in a teapot. Rogers Cable isn't changing the content of the page; it's inserting a notice above it. A useful and informative one. It should be praised for coming up with an unobtrusive yet reliable way of communicating with users. I'd sure rather get a banner on a page than find my service cut off due to a check that got lost in the mail!
HTML is specifically designed to allow the content to be reformatted, rejustified, repositioned, etc. depending upon the circumstances. If a device requires a more rigid format for a page, it is making requirements that are not part of the HTML language -- that is, it is essentially creating a proprietary format that is a subset or extension of HTML.
If a device depends upon a specific subset of HTML, or imposes specific format requirements upon pages that are served to it (which constitute a superset of the language), its developers should create a unique, proprietary content type for that device. This is commonly done; witness, for example, all the proprietary "MS" content types your browser understands.
If a device is receiving data in a proprietary format but claiming that it's a Web page, it's the designer's own fault if it fails due to protocol problems. The proprietary format should be designated by an approprate content type.
MOD PARENT UP. He's absolutely right. This is one of the best ways for an ISP to reach users, and putting a banner at the top of a page does not imply that one will mess with the content below.
If you're obeying the HTTP protocol, you'll transmit an appropriate content type header indicating whether or not the content being sent is a Web page. If you do not do this, you're violating the protocol. And it's your own fault if a device such as a Web cache or proxy messes up your transmission.
Why? I would think that it would create trust, because the ISP took the time and effort to send you a message letting you know about even a relatively small overage charge. An ISP who would do that is, I think, unlikely to mess with things in unreasonable ways. (And frankly, as an end user I care not if they mess with ads, because I filter out pretty much all of them on my machine. Filtering out nasties like Gator and Doubleclick is, in fact, a plus in my book. I'd pay my ISP to run a good ad blocker.)
Brett, as the author of the parent, I am asking a hypothetical question, and pointing out an obvious (to me at least) potential misuse.
The article asks no "hypothetical question." It states that ISPs are filtering content -- right in the title. And in fact, Rogers was not filtering the content, so it is simply false right from the get-go. In fact, because it says "Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?", it states that ISPs in general are filtering content and also is inflammatory because it suggests a growing "problem." In fact, all Rogers is trying to do is send a message to users who are going to incur an extra charge (or, perhaps, have their service cut off if they don't attend to a billing problem). They're not filtering content, and they're not altering your "Web experience." It is disingenuous for you to say so. It appears that, as a member of Lauren Weinstein's "anti-ISP squad," you're seeking to spread FUD.
ISPs in general make stupid assumptions regarding end users.
And there you are again --- making false and misleading generalizations about ISPs in an attempt to generate ill will toward them.
For example, many ISPs cast a blind eye to Linux users, and force us to boot into a Windows partition to get past the first tier support person.
Completely false. I know of none who do, in fact. Some of them are a bit ignorant about alternative operating systems, but I have never found one that insisted that the user boot a particular OS -- especially when it was clear that the problem was not with the computer.
Again, it appears that the entire intent of this posting is to mislead readers and arouse misguided and misdirected anger against ISPs. As the owner of a small ISP which is extremely open source friendly (our entire infrastructure is based on FreeBSD), it occurs to me that your remarks about Linux are again purposefully intended to turn readers against hard working ISPs who are doing their darnedest to provide good service despite incredible technical, regulatory, legal, and other obstacles -- not the least of which are human foibles. ISPs, like most readers of Slashdot, are good guys. They're techies who are faced with impossible deadlines, insufficient budgets, tough decisions, and technically ignorant but demanding users. They deserve respect, not scorn -- and they certainly don't need to be defamed via misleading articles. This entire article really should be yanked, IMHO, because the very title is misleading from the start.
If someone is violating the HTTP RFC by using TCP Port 80 for something other than the Web, he or she must expect that there will sometimes be problems. When you violate the standards, you take your chances.
It seems to me that the title of this article, "Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?", is both inaccurate and inflammatory. The listing of the article in the cateogry "Censorship" is also misleading. Rogers is not filtering or changing the content of Web pages, nor is it censoring them. It's merely displaying a message in the user's browser window, just above the unaltered contents of the page.
As an ISP myself, I think this is a fine idea. It doesn't change the original content of the page, and it's a great way to get a message to a user. For those of you who are not ISPs, it's important for you to understand that at times it is actually rather tough for an ISP to send a message to a customer reliably and quickly. We've tried e-mail, but some people don't check their mail or change their addresses without notice (often because they have revealed their addresses online and have gotten spammed to death at the one we know). We've tried sending notices via the Windows Message Service (at least when the users ran Windows), but that avenue only lasted until abusers started using it for pop-up spam. We've tried calling, but that's expensive, labor intensive, and time-consuming. Sending the message via the user's browser is not unlike the messages which TV stations superimpose on other material -- and is no more a violation of copyright. But it's far less annoying, because the user can dismiss the message once it's read. (Fortunately, it is not patentable, because services like Juno have been "framing" pages for years.) And warning the user is far more friendly than having an overage charge come as a surprise on the next bill.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey -- if our competition wants to go overboard and slather Web pages with ads, I say that's great! Please, let them do it! It'd be promoting us as competition. Our ISP will get their customers in a heartbeat. And we'll only use this technique to send occasional messages that are of interest to our users.
Never. No ISP in its right mind would overuse this feature. It would annoy and drive away users, or they'd just dismiss the message without looking at it. Our ISP would use it only for billing matters or notices informing users when we'd be taking portions of the network down for maintenance.
As an ISP, I find it very hard to believe that any ISP wouldn't be willing to e-mail a user at the address of his or her choice. And, no, we certainly have no reason to spam them. (I have never heard of, and can't imagine, an ISP that is not vehemently anti-spam.) The problem we do see, though, is that people frequently change their addresses without telling us. What Rogers is doing is a very elegant way to ensure that we're reaching the right user and that the message gets through.
Network neutrality does not mean that a provider can't "frame" pages (as do many providers -- especially those like Juno which provide inexpensive or free service) or send them informative messages via their browser.
Let's step back and take a dispassionate look at what Rogers is really doing here. They need to get a message to a customer. Like any experienced ISP, they know that there's a good chance that e-mail won't be read in a timely way, if at all. (We, as an ISP, find that our customers constantly change their addresses -- often after revealing them online and exposing them to spammers -- without any notice, and often let the mailboxes that we give them fill up, unread, until they exceed their quotas and no more can be received.) The Windows Message Service once worked to send users messages, but only ran on Windows and is now routinely blocked because it's become an avenue for pop-up spam. Snail mail? Expensive and slow... and the whole point of the Internet is to do things faster and more efficiently than that. Display a different page than the user requested? Perhaps, but that certainly comes much closer to "hijacking" than what Rogers is doing. Display a message in the user's browser window (where we know he or she is looking) along with the Web page, and let the user "dismiss" it as soon as it's noticed? Excellent idea. A wonderful, simple, unobtrusive, and (IMHO) elegant solution to the problem.
Now comes Lauren Weinstein -- known for drawing attention to himself by sensationalizing tempests in a teapot -- who has never run an ISP but seems to like to dictate what they do. Lauren claims that the sky will fall if ISPs use this nearly ideal way of communicating with their customers.
Contrary to the claims of Mr. Weinstein's "network neutrality squad" (who have expanded the definition of "network neutrality" to mean "ISPs not doing any thing which we, as unappointed regulators, do not approve"), this means of communication does not violate copyrights. Why? First of all, the message from the ISP appears entirely above, and separate from, the content of the page in the browser window. It's not much different that displaying it in a different pane (which, by the way, the browser might also be able to do -- but this is better because it's less obtrusive and unlikely to fail for the lack of Javascript or distort the page below). The display can't be considered a derivative work, because no human is adding his own creative expression to someone else's creation. A machine -- which can't create copyrighted works or derivative ones -- is simply putting a message above the page in the same browser window.
It isn't defacement, because the original page appears exactly as it was intended -- just farther down in the window. And it isn't "hijacking," because the user is still getting the page he or she requested.
What's more, there's no way that it can be said to be "non-neutral." The proxy which inserts the message into the window doesn't know or care what content lies below. The screen capture in Weinstein's blog showed Google, but it just as easily could have been Yahoo!, or Myspace, or Slashdot.
In short, to complain that this practice is somehow injurious to the author of the original page is akin to an author complaining that his book has been injured by being displayed in a store window along with another book by someone he didn't like. Sorry, sir, but the merchant is allowed to do that unless he's signed a contract with you that forces him not to.
Nor is what Rogers is doing a violation of an ISP's "common carrier" obligations (even if they were considered to be common carriers, which under US law, at any rate, they are not). Common carriers have been injecting notices in
Rogers didn't edit the content. In fact, no sapient being was involved -- which would be a prerequisite for that. The proxy merely put a banner above the unaltered content. That's not editing, and so it falls outside the scope of Compuserve and similar cases.
Rogers didn't change the content of the Web page one bit. It merely put a banner at the top. Juno and other services have been doing this for years (a technique called "framing") and it's never been considered to be copyright infringement; it's not in this case either. And it's sure less obtrusive than a pop-up!
This topic seems to be an example of a sensationalist (In this case, Lauren Weinstein, who seems to get a rush from causing a fuss) making inflammatory claim and then having it posted on Slashdot to produce a knee-jerk overreaction. Highly manipulative. And you've taken the bait! Fortunately, many of the other people posting here have actually looked at the screen shot, seen what was going on, and have recognized that the article and the page to which it refers are inflammatory and misleading.
Actually, this is the kind of innovative idea you'd expect from a small ISP rather than a big one. It's user-friendly, unobtrusive, and effective, and it vanishes with a click as soon as you acknowledge it. It's refreshing to see a large ISP doing it. What's scary is to see Weinstein's overblown claims that it's abusive or is a harbinger of something horrible. It seems as if Weinstein and his "net neutrality" group are really an "anti-ISP" group that's attacking the very things which a small provider can do to make its service better than that of a big provider. They may not understand that they're promoting a duopoly... or maybe they do. Some of them work for very large cable and telephone providers.
Many ISP's provide email. This in the obvious way to contact your customers. You don't need care about what email addresses your customers are currently using because you can always use the one you gave them.
This statement is the first sign that you have no experience as an ISP. The fact is that users often do not check the mailbox the ISP gives them, and sometimes do not check any mailbox regularly. E-mail is not a reliable way to reach a customer.
If customers don't want to run tools to tell them when they are about to exceed their limit that's their problem.
No. It's our problem (and our job) to provide good customer service with no effort or technical knowledge on the part of the user. That means being proactive even if the customer has changed computers; even if the customer has an incompatible computer; even if the customer has a broken computer. Remember, the ISP gets blamed for everything. This entire topic is a great example; it condemns an ISP for doing the right thing!
it's intrusive, it's a slippery slope to really unethical behavior, and it's possibly illegal (for the copyright infringement reason).
All alarmist and false claims. It's the best way I've seen to get the job done. Rogers deserves credit for implementing it.
But even then I don't think it's a good idea because it's only a matter of time before some marketing manager will decide it's a really good idea to use the same mechanism for advertising.
Hey, I guess that ISPs should block all P2P then. After all, some thief will decide it's a really good idea to use it to pirate music and movies, and start using the same mechanism for stealing.
As an ISP, I can tell you that there is no "set" or sure way of contacting a customer quickly. Customers frequently change their e-mail addresses due to spam. You can call, but this is expensive and intrusive. Users often change their numbers (especially cell phone numbers). And what if the user is about to exceed his or her download limit at 3 AM? Should you call and risk waking the household? Should you wait until the next morning and tell the user after the fact (which might cause him or her to claim that more notice should have been given)? We've tried a custom application, but people didn't load it because they feared viruses. Or were running a platform that couldn't run it. Or deleted it by mistake. We even tried the Windows Message Service; it worked only until pop-up spammers started abusing it. Frankly, putting a banner at the top of Web pages is a really good, customer-friendly idea.
If you think that the potential applications of a technology are sufficient cause to ban it, you've got an airtight case for banning all P2P.
This story was posted yesterday as "Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?", so this one is redundant and should be removed. It's also a misleading tempest in a teapot. Rogers Cable isn't changing the content of the page; it's inserting a notice above it. A useful and informative one. It should be praised for coming up with an unobtrusive yet reliable way of communicating with users. I'd sure rather get a banner on a page than find my service cut off due to a check that got lost in the mail!
If a device depends upon a specific subset of HTML, or imposes specific format requirements upon pages that are served to it (which constitute a superset of the language), its developers should create a unique, proprietary content type for that device. This is commonly done; witness, for example, all the proprietary "MS" content types your browser understands.
If a device is receiving data in a proprietary format but claiming that it's a Web page, it's the designer's own fault if it fails due to protocol problems. The proprietary format should be designated by an approprate content type.
I suppose that getting up from the couch and going to the bathroom (or to get a beer) during a commercial is stealing, then. ;-)
MOD PARENT UP. He's absolutely right. This is one of the best ways for an ISP to reach users, and putting a banner at the top of a page does not imply that one will mess with the content below.
If you're obeying the HTTP protocol, you'll transmit an appropriate content type header indicating whether or not the content being sent is a Web page. If you do not do this, you're violating the protocol. And it's your own fault if a device such as a Web cache or proxy messes up your transmission.
Why? I would think that it would create trust, because the ISP took the time and effort to send you a message letting you know about even a relatively small overage charge. An ISP who would do that is, I think, unlikely to mess with things in unreasonable ways. (And frankly, as an end user I care not if they mess with ads, because I filter out pretty much all of them on my machine. Filtering out nasties like Gator and Doubleclick is, in fact, a plus in my book. I'd pay my ISP to run a good ad blocker.)
The article asks no "hypothetical question." It states that ISPs are filtering content -- right in the title. And in fact, Rogers was not filtering the content, so it is simply false right from the get-go. In fact, because it says "Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?", it states that ISPs in general are filtering content and also is inflammatory because it suggests a growing "problem." In fact, all Rogers is trying to do is send a message to users who are going to incur an extra charge (or, perhaps, have their service cut off if they don't attend to a billing problem). They're not filtering content, and they're not altering your "Web experience." It is disingenuous for you to say so. It appears that, as a member of Lauren Weinstein's "anti-ISP squad," you're seeking to spread FUD.
ISPs in general make stupid assumptions regarding end users.
And there you are again --- making false and misleading generalizations about ISPs in an attempt to generate ill will toward them.
For example, many ISPs cast a blind eye to Linux users, and force us to boot into a Windows partition to get past the first tier support person.
Completely false. I know of none who do, in fact. Some of them are a bit ignorant about alternative operating systems, but I have never found one that insisted that the user boot a particular OS -- especially when it was clear that the problem was not with the computer.
Again, it appears that the entire intent of this posting is to mislead readers and arouse misguided and misdirected anger against ISPs. As the owner of a small ISP which is extremely open source friendly (our entire infrastructure is based on FreeBSD), it occurs to me that your remarks about Linux are again purposefully intended to turn readers against hard working ISPs who are doing their darnedest to provide good service despite incredible technical, regulatory, legal, and other obstacles -- not the least of which are human foibles. ISPs, like most readers of Slashdot, are good guys. They're techies who are faced with impossible deadlines, insufficient budgets, tough decisions, and technically ignorant but demanding users. They deserve respect, not scorn -- and they certainly don't need to be defamed via misleading articles. This entire article really should be yanked, IMHO, because the very title is misleading from the start.
If someone is violating the HTTP RFC by using TCP Port 80 for something other than the Web, he or she must expect that there will sometimes be problems. When you violate the standards, you take your chances.
It seems to me that the title of this article, "Will ISP Web Content Filtering Continue To Grow?", is both inaccurate and inflammatory. The listing of the article in the cateogry "Censorship" is also misleading. Rogers is not filtering or changing the content of Web pages, nor is it censoring them. It's merely displaying a message in the user's browser window, just above the unaltered contents of the page.
No, I said INSANITY. Stupidity.... Well, that's another issue altogether. ;-)
As an ISP myself, I think this is a fine idea. It doesn't change the original content of the page, and it's a great way to get a message to a user. For those of you who are not ISPs, it's important for you to understand that at times it is actually rather tough for an ISP to send a message to a customer reliably and quickly. We've tried e-mail, but some people don't check their mail or change their addresses without notice (often because they have revealed their addresses online and have gotten spammed to death at the one we know). We've tried sending notices via the Windows Message Service (at least when the users ran Windows), but that avenue only lasted until abusers started using it for pop-up spam. We've tried calling, but that's expensive, labor intensive, and time-consuming. Sending the message via the user's browser is not unlike the messages which TV stations superimpose on other material -- and is no more a violation of copyright. But it's far less annoying, because the user can dismiss the message once it's read. (Fortunately, it is not patentable, because services like Juno have been "framing" pages for years.) And warning the user is far more friendly than having an overage charge come as a surprise on the next bill.
Settling when someone makes an illegal demand isn't smart, IMHO.
Isn't insanity often defined as repeating the same action and expecting a different result?