AT&T Silences Criticism in New Terms of Service 298
marco13185 writes "AT&T's new Terms of Service give AT&T the right to suspend your account and all service "for conduct that AT&T believes"..."(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." After cooperating with the government's violations of privacy and liberties, I guess AT&T wants their fair share. AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service."
Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:5, Insightful)
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No. (for the thousandth time. Hopefully someday people will figure this out)
Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:5, Insightful)
So in an area where they have the only service available they are silencing their critics, how is that not censoring? Isn't part of the common carrier status a requirement to not deny service to someone because of stated ideological/political beliefs? My political beliefs include ideals about how global companies should act, and thus should be protected speech in the common carrier sense.
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I agree... but mainly because the internet is as ubiquitous and as predominant a means of communications as is the telephone. Therefore the internet should be considered one of those vehicles. And the ISPs are merely a vehicle to connect to the internet so should have no right to determine what and what not a person is allowed to say. Especially with the near monopoly that AT&T has. However, they achieved the near monopoly by way of lobbying and vote buying (pretty much the same thing). They will p
Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:5, Informative)
In general, telco divisions/companies/business units are common carriers; ISP divisions/companies/business units are not.
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Because there are special laws that exempt them from liability but those are not the standard common carrier laws but special laws for ISPs.
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Cake + Eat? (Score:2)
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The first amemndment does not protect you from consequences for saying something, it protects your right to say something.
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And if the consequence is being beaten with rubber hoses and thrown in jail by the police, the first amendment doesn't protect you from that consequence either, eh? Well, you just lost my nomination to the supreme court.
What the hell is it with people on the net (Score:4, Informative)
The way I like to put it is "The right to freedom of speech does not imply the right to be heard." In other words you are free to scream all you want about whatever you want, but you aren't free to do it in my living room, I can kick you out if I want. You are free to write whatever you want, but you aren't free to do so on my web forums, I can kick you off. You are free to express your self as you want, but you aren't free to do so at work, they are free to fire you.
That's what people mean. Your free expression can have consequences with other private citizens, and the first amendment does not protect you from that. It can't as to do so would be to infringe on those other citizen's rights. What it protects you from is the government. The constitution is a document relating to the government. It lays out what powers the government gets to have, and places limitations on those powers. So it does say that the government can't come and arrest you for saying something they don't like.
Your rights are not unlimited, you are not king. Your rights end where mine (and everyone else's) begin. You'd do well to learn that concept, or you are in for some real nasty surprises later in life.
Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:4, Informative)
You apparently share a common misunderstanding about our Constitution. The Constitution is a document which limits the powers of our government only. Thus the protections for citizens only cover government intervention into the lives of its citizens. The Constitution has no authority over, and does not regulate, the behavior between private citizens. Only the laws that the government passes (within the powers granted by the Constitution) can regulate that.
Re:Reason #1 for net neutrality... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Constitution gives you no rights. The founding fathers clearly state that your rights inalienable [wikipedia.org]. The Constitution is there to limit government and protect you from the government.
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Value AT&T? (Score:3, Funny)
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Love it or Leave it! (Score:4, Insightful)
(/sarcasm)
How does your line of reasoning deal with the "or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries" language? If you continue using AT&T "service" you obviously shouldn't be allowed to express negative things about any of the other companies they do business with.
Let them try disconnecting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Laws exist that prevent disconnecting landline AND electricity which is used to power heat to any house in New England states which has an elder or an infant in it.
Let AT&T just try it.
You would see the full weight of law and the CT Supreme Court falling upon it.
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Its called "technical difficulties." Any lineworker wanting extra bonus points may climb the pole down the street and find a loose connection on your line. Might be days until they trace it down, but they fixed the wrong connection. Too bad you can't use your phone to complain and get the run-around anymore.
Been there, done that, but with Bell South.
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terms don't cover landlines. (Score:2)
I suspect AT&T knows they'll run afoul of the public utilities commission if they try to do this kind of the thing with a POTS telephone line.
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When that language is included, somebody's going to use it. I'll agree that lawyers tend to push the bounds, but here we're talking about the company that once said "We're the phone company. We don't HAVE to care."*
* Admittedly, this was before the prior breakup...but you'll notice that that's been undone, and now they have less regulation.
Re:Let them try disconnecting... (Score:5, Insightful)
"We handle eighty-four billion calls a year. Serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the earth. We realize that every so often you can't get an operator, for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order, or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make.
We don't care.
Watch this.. [ she hits buttons maniacally ]
You see, this phone system consists of a multibillion-dollar matrix of space age technology that is so sophisticated, even we can't handle it. But that's your problem, isn't it? Next time you complain about your phone service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string?
We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
The scary thing is that Lily Tomlin pretty much nailed it. It's a lot less funny knowing they're *really* like that.
My service is shit ! (Score:3, Funny)
Not censorship (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not censorship (Score:5, Funny)
I can't see how anyone could complain about it.
You only say that because you want to keep your Internet connection.
Re:Not censorship (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean you haven't seen anybody complaining about it, right?
They wouldn't dare. (Score:4, Insightful)
So to get this rebate I have to wait 3 months, call AT&T customer support then wait an additional 3 to 4 months for the rebate to arrive. Thats seven whole months before they have to give the rebate back. And you know what would suck even more? If they canceled my service I wouldn't ever get [error: connection to host lost]
This should end well (Score:4, Interesting)
So, now the fun begins, since they have proven they can police their network, they now have to respond to any illegal activities or risk a lawsuit.
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I don't think that is the idea here. What the statement in question appears to say is that "If you say anything bad about us, we'll cut you off."
Do I think AT&T will cut off service if you make a Slashdot post about crappy service? No--it's
Re:This should end well (Score:4, Insightful)
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Either way, they're probably going to regret that. If they respond to illegal activies
They day may come when they'll be begging for Common Carrier status for their
Corporate dickishness (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T cooperates in wholesale spying on the American public without a warrant, then goes back to Congress and asks for immunity from lawsuits. Now they slip a "no criticize" clause in their user agreement. Reminds me of Microsoft, only worse. When did dickish corporate behavior become the new standard? I must have missed that memo.
The interesting question is whether corporate behavior is just a more visible mirror of the increasing lack of civility in every day relationships? Because when I think back to times when even corporations still behaved with a modicum of civility and tended to err on the side of the customer, I realized that the general level of decency at all levels of interaction was higher.
When it comes to AT&T a whole new generation is learning why we broke them up in the first place.
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Re:Corporate dickishness (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, for the love of god, stop calling the US economic system capitalism, it isn't, at least not in the way Adam Smith, or even Friedman talked about it. Capitalism assumes that the government limit regulation only to account for externalities ( pollution, healthcare, education etc... ) while simultaneously ensuring that you don't get coercive monopolies. Does this sound like the US today? AT&T is a problem precisely BECAUSE you don't have any meaningful competition. Virtually all of the problems in the US are caused by corrupt decisions that run directly against the idea of utilizing competition in a free market to balance prices. Copyright , Patents, Farmer Subsidies, Trade barriers... you name it.
It appears to me that you have two very common naive interpretations of capitalism. The first is the "libertarian" viewpoint in which the free market is a magical solution to all problems and government intervention is the source of all evil. The second is what I like to call the "hippie" interpretation which blames all problems on capitalism no matter what. I've heard people seriously trying to argue that capitalism is the root cause of homophobia, apparently due to how corporations favor "the nuclear family" or something (I was tempted to suggest that the nuclear family should be banned on environmental concerns because radiation causes cancer, but I figured it was a bad idea. ).
Really, stop blaming every single problem on capitalism ( or communism for that matter ). Reality is that the government is corrupt, which will cause you trouble in a planned economy as well as a market based one. Much of this is the consequence of a bad electoral system which favors only two very similar parties, but thinking that the problem would somehow go away if the US had a more socialistic system is naive at best. It would merely substitute government agencies for corporations. To really deal with it you would have to overhaul the electoral system, but that is not going to happen any time soon.
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Indeed, but you've fallen into the fallacy of believing the only two alternatives are a market based economy, or a government directed one.
The solution is not to change the boss, but to get rid of the concept of a boss altogether (or at least radically redfine it). Democratic workplaces would eliminate much of the kind of b
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Diseases spread, leaving poor people without treatment makes them much more likely to go ill which can in turn infect other people etc... Furthermore sick people are less able to work, and most work benefits society one way or a
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That's just insanity in the guise of an authoritative-sounding quote. How did the "state" give Microsoft its monopoly power to force PC vendors not to carry competitors' OS products?
I can almost sympathize... (Score:2)
Then it turns out (oops), that the FBI themselves get busted for the spying activity and AT&T is left holding the civil liabillity bag. I _almost_ have sympathy for them because there were so many other companies
Maybe NOT! (Score:4, Insightful)
As a practical matter, I would expect to see these terms on business accounts (where free speech is arguable) and less on home accounts (where it is not).
Yes, it is bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
If history has taught us anything, it is that companies - regardless of original intent - always construe the meaning of contracts in the manner most advantageous to the company.
This clause may not be intended to be enforced against individual users, but as soon as a customer becomes critical of AT&T and starts costing them money, the company lawyers will find this clause and silence them.
Those are unconscionable terms! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if you read the ToS, they already have that covered a thousand times over.
> They ought to have developed less-inflammatory wording.
Not to mention terms that haven't been ruled unconscionable before!
Just to prove my point, per the ToS [bellsouth.net], you agree to their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) [att.net] (it's item 13 or something, it's pretty far down the list and the AUP has all the good stuff), which states, among other things:
(Emphasis added.) Not to mention this:
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That said, both have used unnecessarly ambiguous language that generates fear and exposes them to predictable criticism. There is a serious probability the fear is intentional in which case it can be considered deliberate intimidation (which is evil).
Frankly, I'm not surprised (Score:5, Funny)
No, they shouldn't (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they shouldn't. There are worse things in life than loosing your Internet service, and I expect this to stand up neither in Courts of Law, nor in the Court of Public Opinion.
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It's just like the story from the other day where it costs the guy $7,500 to fight the police for arrest for not showing his license. He obviously had the law on his side and yet it cost him $7,500 to get the charges dropped. Yes you can say he was an idiot for getting to that point in the first place, but the fact is the law did nothing t
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Not a problem... (Score:2)
When I tried to explain to the service rep that the problem was on their end, the service rep "accidentally" deleted the cable modem info from the system and I had to wait two weeks for the system to purge itself before the modem info could be added back in. The technician verified that the problem was on their end. On another service call, it took a month to convince them that I couldn't
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First, I moved into a house and asked for the cable to be activated. They insisted it already was, which didn't make sense, especially since we weren't getting any picture. After a few rounds of that, and about 10 days later, my son found a cable amplifier in t
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Isn't this illegal (Score:2)
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and since AT&T isn't a branch of Congress (more like an unowned subsidiary of the NSA), the Constitution wouldn't apply. If I'm in a restaurant loudly complaining about my lunch, the restaurant isn't required constitutionally to sell me dessert.
AT&T's disincentive to use this is that if they lose customers they lose money. This isn't the 1970's and even if a handful of people living in the ass-end of Wyoming don't have a lot of competitors to choose from, the v
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I dunno... (Score:2)
AT&T isn't restricting your right to say bad things about them, they are simply saying that if you do, they don't want to do business with you anymore.
Now, perhaps if you can argue that they are a near monopoly, they shouldn't be able to do that. But if you have a choice am
AT&T new's motto: "Be Evil" (Score:2)
]
On the bright side... (Score:3, Funny)
Even Turkish Telekom is better ! (Score:4, Interesting)
america, land of the free. or was land of the free. why are you people are putting up with this kind of shit there, and not rise up and put an end to that i dont know. you have overthrown the strongest monarchy of the times at 1776. you should be able to topple a bunch of cash greedy bastards.
The Bully Pulpit (Score:4, Interesting)
AT&T, taken apart decades ago because of their abuse of monopoly power, has not learned how to compete in a free marketplace and, thus, must go back to their orginal business model: hateful monopolizing. Perhaps some of you remember or have seen reruns of Lily Tomlin's wonderful ATT operator.
The main problem with having a president who lies and suspends constitutional rights is that the public, by example, are led to believe lying and bullying are OK. "Gee, the president makes it work for him...."
This is the famous Bully Pulpit that the first President Roosevelt talked about.
To give a more specific example of this principle, when former president George Herbert Walker Bush complained publicly that the Japanese government was trading unfairly with the United States (this was before the Tokyo stock crash) several Japanese tourists were attacked and beaten on the streets of US cities.
We need a president who loves truth. Otherwise, the US has more to worry about than Ma Bell.
Of course, Ma Bell is bad enough....
disclaimer: I am an ATT customer in CA. rethinking my subscription to their service.
But wait -- that leaves me with using ComCast....
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Reach Out and Crush Someone (Score:2)
"Do you promise to covet propriety prosperity posterity and never hurt the state say what?"
What?
"Take the stand..."
The judge would look at the contract, laugh, and say:
ATT - get a fucking life you idiots. DISMISSED! NEXT!!!
"Yes your honour. Next is The case of World v. GW Bush..."
And the judge smirks - "Another slam dunk...I mi
Simple math (Score:2)
Government gets telecom to install snoop switches everywhere. Not just when they need a tap, but you know, *proactively*. Telecom has to "want" to do it and they do.
Government doesn't say anything about bandwidth, universal access, net neutrality or EULAs that go against the Constitution. Meanwhile other countries (all buying U.S. hardware) roll way ahead in phones, fiber, online privacy
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I'll say it (Score:2)
They cant stop me! (Score:2)
[NO CARRIER]
I'm not sure that's being interpreted correctly. (Score:2)
However, the rule says <i>conduct</i>. To me, this means that if your actions (only including, not exclusive to speech) are damaging AT&T's reputation, they can cut you off. What sort of conduct would damage a carrier's reputation? Harassing another person pops into mind immediately. "Why doesn't AT&T do something, are they just scumbags?"...
New model army (Score:2)
Re:If you dont like it... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't live in the states, but aren't they the sole provider in many areas?
Something needs to be done to stop the growing trend of laundry-list TOS agreements that amount to "we can kick you off our network any time we damn well feel like it"; aren't there laws about unfair clauses in these kinds of contracts.
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And IANAL, but I don't think reserving the right to cancel service would constitute an unfair agreement. Those laws (to the extent that a big company thats in good with the surveillance state can't just bribe their way out of them) are really more for things like contracts that allow outright theft or other activity that would be criminal outside of the contract. Like f
Re:If you dont like it... (Score:5, Insightful)
People look to me for advice on any range of technical issues. While I rarely, if ever, say "don't do this" I will state factual reasons not to do something. For example: iPhone -- you cannot change your own batteries. I don't say "it's 'restrictive'" or limiting or anything people will not understand. I will tell them things they can easily identify with.
So in this case, I would say, "according to AT&T's TOS, you're not allowed to publicly complain about the quality of your service or the size of your bill!" "Not allowed to complain" is something that will register with anyone. So I plan to just tell people... with AT&T, you lose your right to complain. That will strike HARD against the consumer's heart.
We can do what we like. You have no power. (Score:2)
Agreed. These contracts sound like the megalomaniac dreams of a 3-year-old: We can do what we like. You have no power.
Steve Jobs decided to tie the iPhone [att.com] to AT&T (actually SBC with a new name) [google.com], and now the company is awash in bad publicity. (See the title of the AT&T web page.)
Re:If you dont like it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh right, we busted up the phone monopoly decades ago, now if you don't like your phone service, YOU CAN MOVE TO ANOTHER FUCKING STATE.
But hey, if they cancel my service over this, I can demand phone service back thanks to their franchise contract and universal access laws. If they charge me to turn it back on, I'll have the city council going over that contract to see what can be done about getting some real competition in here.
Re:If you dont like it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If you dont like it... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Moderators: you absolutely need to mark this Insightful
.I work on order and billing systems for telcos and have some insight into this... and was just thinking the same damn thing. Colbert makes the point so much better than I could. Glad you posted this.
:) )
Monopoly? We got no steengking monopoly. (apologies to 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre'
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But hey, if they cancel my service over this, I can demand phone service back thanks to their franchise contract and universal access laws. If they charge me to turn it back on, I'll have the city council going over that contract to see what can be done about getting some real competition in here.
Or maybe through the courts to enforce the franchise agreements and there is precendence for utility property transferred to another enitity for failure to live up to the franchise agreement.
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LOL, thanks, I already have one.
get a mobile
And expensive high-latency low-bandwidth internet access? I'm sure that's a substitute for DSL in whatever world of rainbows and unicorns you live in.
get VoIP
"We're sorry, due to network congestion your call cannot be completed. Please try again later."
email/send an IM
That's just brilliant, why didn't I think of that, after they cut off my service, I can just send an email over the inter.... heyyy wait a minute.
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OK, the latency may be a little high
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I don't like it... (Score:4, Insightful)
The point is not that AT&T is doing this (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger picture is that this is yet another one of those corporate slippery slopes.
The technique is straightforward. A huge company with vast legal resources will create terms of contract that are annoying, but just a little bit less annoying than the transaction cost of replacing that company with another one. They've annoyed you, but like a frog being boiled in water, you figure you can live with it. Pretty soon all of the company's competitors are doing the same thing, and now you have no other recourse, even if you wanted to go through the time, expense, and hassle of switching.
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As an AT&T user... (Score:2, Insightful)
Posting from an AT&T connection, shut down my service if you want to guys!
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Sad thing is I've heard this phrase from more people inside the company than outside (usually from baby bells "acquired" by SBC).
-nB
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Not really, no. Cooperatives have shown themselves to be stable, fair minded, and able to survive in a market environment.
In any case - consider corporations to be a microcosm of governments. Regardless of how bad an elected leadership might be - its generally a hell of a lot better than an unelected one.
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Lawyers are just people. Some do 'good' some do 'evil'.
Am I wrong (Score:3, Insightful)