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Privacy Communications Technology

VoIP Terms of Service May Surprise You 285

rabtech writes "If you are thinking of ditching a land-line for a VOIP provider such as Vonage or Net2Phone, you might want to think again. Software "End User license Agreements" have gotten a lot of attention in the past over their onerous and restrictive terms, but who would expect such things from your phone company? The prime example is Vonage, which states among other things that 'If Vonage, in its sole discretion believes that you have violated the above restrictions, Vonage may forward the objectionable material, as well as your communications with Vonage and your personally identifiable information to the appropriate authorities for investigation and prosecution and you hereby consent to such forwarding.'" (Read more below.)

"Don't forget the obligatory 'we can change these terms of service whenever we like and they become effective immediately when posted to our website.' Read for yourself here(1), here(2), and here(3). I won't put up with this kind of thing in my software and I certainly won't put up with it from my phone company!"

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VoIP Terms of Service May Surprise You

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  • i'd hat to see what British Telecom comes out with when this (eventually) hit's the UK.
    • Re:BT (Score:3, Interesting)

      by norfolkboy ( 235999 )
      http://www.btbroadbandvoice.com/ [btbroadbandvoice.com] to be precise
    • Re:BT (Score:3, Informative)

      by Threni ( 635302 )
      > i'd hat to see what British Telecom comes out with when this (eventually) hit's
      > the UK.

      Is that a tin-foil hat? Certainly sounds like one.

      *ALL* phone companies will *always* work actively with the government. This is just them covering their back so you don't sue them if any legal action against you fails.
      • Re:BT (Score:4, Insightful)

        by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @08:01AM (#9928245) Homepage
        That is correct. But phone companies are considered a utility and are regulated. So they cannot just change their contracts overnight. They have to clear any changes (often even price changes) with the relevant regulator. This is not the case as far as VOIP providers are concerned and will continue not to be the case until they are exempt from the normal telecommunication regulatory regime. So this VONAGE behavior is a direct consequence of it not having to concent to telecoms regulations which is something which 80%+ of the slashdot crowd supports. And now they scream murder... Go figure...
        • Re:BT (Score:3, Insightful)

          by gcaseye6677 ( 694805 )
          But the flip side to this situation is that it is a lot easier to change VOIP providers than to change your POTS service, if you can change it at all. Extreme regulation was needed when the phone company was the only provider in town, but if you can change VOIP providers fairly easily, the competition aspect will prevent companies from angering their customers with unreasonable policies and service.
        • And now they scream murder... Go figure...

          No, the /. editors trolled them into it by the wording of their headline. Any screaming murder in the thread will be by the same people who scream over any little issue.

  • Really scary thing! It's sad tho that all kinds of companies does this all the time, trading your info, altho it's not quite as bad as your recorded calls...
    • Re:Scary (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Itsik ( 191227 ) <demiguru-at-me@com> on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:54AM (#9928204) Homepage
      I totally agree with the parent regarding the recording aspect. It is my impression that this isn't any different than what is currently happening with land line phone companies though.

      During a television interview with Patrick Norton on what used to be TechTV. The head of the NSA had revealed that following 9/11 various "Random" phone calls are being monitored, using a monitoring system that is triggered by keywords, that are used during the phone conversation.

      • Re:Scary (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Rufus88 ( 748752 )

        "Random" phone calls are being monitored, using a monitoring system that is triggered by keywords, that are used during the phone conversation


        Umm, if the "monitoring" is triggered by spoken keywords, then they must already be "monitoring" in order to detect the keywords.
    • IANAL, but it would seem that the mere fact that they say it doesn't necessarily make it true. Take the bit about changing terms becoming effective as soon as they're posted on their web site. If they go and dramatically change their terms of service, and then the find that you're in violation of the new TOS, they'd have a hard time showing that you actually agreed to the TOS.

      I'm sure this gives them a big stick to chase customers around with, but I doubt they'd ever let a case get to court where their TOS
    • Re:Scary (Score:5, Informative)

      by YouHaveSnail ( 202852 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @08:33AM (#9928490)
      It does help to read more of the TOS than what's quoted in the /. summary. For example, the section leading up to the quoted part goes like this:

      1.3 Lawful Use of Service and Device

      1.3.1 Prohibited Uses
      You agree to use the Service and Device only for lawful purposes. This means that you agree not to use them for transmitting or receiving any communication or material of any kind when in Vonage's sole judgment the transmission, receipt or possession of such communication or material (i) would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or (ii) encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law.


      These are the 'restrictions' they're talking about. What they're saying here is that if you're using their equipment for criminal purposes, and if they know about it, they have the right to terminate your service, call the cops, and tell 'em what they know. I don't see how they have a lot of choice about this: if they did anything else, they'd open themselves up to all sorts of liability.

      But it doesn't mean that they're going to monitor all your conversations or drop the hammer when you call your bookie. According to their privacy policy:

      Vonage will not read, listen to or disclose to any third parties private e-mail, conversations, or other communications that are transmitted using Vonage services except as required to ensure proper operation of services or as otherwise authorized by law.


      They also tell you in their privacy policy that they might use your data in ways you might not like: i.e. tell the cops who you are and where you live:

      Vonage may use customer identifiable information to investigate and help prevent potentially unlawful activity or activities that threaten the integrity of service or network integrity or otherwise violate Vonage's Service Level Agreement.


      This should come as no surprise to anyone, and any phone company would do the same thing. But what the phone company can (and must) do is well established in both our culture and our laws. Vonage, which for many purposes would probably prefer not to be considered a phone company, is offering a relatively new kind of service, and they really need to make these things explicit.

      There's a lot of pressure on the FCC right now to regulate VOIP providers and make them make their networks easily tappable by law enforcement agencies. That's not entirely unreasonable... you don't want drug dealers and terrorists to have an untappable, portable, fast, cheap communications system with fixed cost long distance to boot.

      Our role as citizens that have some understanding of the tech involved is to make sure our representatives know that for tapping purposes, law enforcement should treat VOIP just like POTS service. Essentially, they should have to jump through exactly the same hoops in order to get permission to tap VOIP that they do to tap POTS or cell service.
      • Re:Scary (Score:3, Informative)

        by nuggetboy ( 661501 )
        Vonage will not read, listen to or disclose to any third parties private e-mail, conversations, or other communications that are transmitted using Vonage services except as required to ensure proper operation of services or as otherwise authorized by law.


        I find the word 'authorized' odd. The previous clause said 'required'. As though they'll do it if they are allowed, not just when forced.
      • Did you miss the part about civil liability? They aren't just talking about criminal actions and those are none of their business anyway; if law enforcement wants something, they get a wiretapping order and that is that.

        You might also be aware that the terms of service trump the privacy policy. Oh, and they can change the terms of service anytime they like in any way they like and you have no say in the matter. And they don't have to notify you. If you disagree with the terms, you are still on the hook for
  • Privacy etc. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by onree ( 680951 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @06:52AM (#9927873)
    This -- as well as the potential long-term storage of all content that passes through Vonage's network -- is why I think it's crazy people are so gung-ho about unregulated 'phone' service. Just one more sacrificial lamb to the information economy.
    • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by TheGax ( 572856 )
      Yeah. Because it's feasible for Vonage (or any other VoIP provider) to store complete telephone calls for the long term.
      Tin foil hats anyone....
      • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Malor ( 3658 ) * on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:14AM (#9927960) Journal
        Well, assuming a 3 minute call... you can store voice data in about 8k/second. 3 * 60 * 8 = 1440... meaning the 'average' telephone call is going to take almost exactly one floppy disk to store.

        Storage is somewhere around a buck a gig, so that means I could store a thousand average calls for about a buck.

        Let's say that everyone in the country makes five 'average' calls a day. That's 250 million people, or about 1.25 billion calls a day.

        In terms of just storage, archiving every one of those calls would probably cost about 1.25 million/day, or about 500 million a year. We spend that much in Iraq every couple of DAYS.

        Now, there are going to be scaling problems with addressing this much data, and it wouldn't be this cheap, but if our government really wanted to do this, they *could*. It's feasible, although costly, to do TODAY... and in five years, it'll be a lot cheaper.

        And look at it from a smaller perspective... if Vonage is handling a hundred thousand calls a day, they could easily archive an entire day onto ONE HARD DRIVE.

        It's not nearly as tinfoil-hattish as you seem to think.
        • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:2, Insightful)

          Do you seriously think that a private company is going to WASTE $1.25 million PER DAY on logging your calls? This is tinfoil of the highest order, and more importantly it's really fucking bad business practice. I doubt even MS would dump half a billion a year into something so goddamned stupid.
          • No, but the US Gov't Department of Black Helicopters could easily archive it for them, or pay them to do it.
          • In Britain, ISP's are required by the government to retain e-mail and web data on all their customers so that the police, members of parliment, your local counciler etc. can access this data under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) act.

            In order to do this, they spend money on storage costs because they're required to. That it is "bad business practice" is neither here nor there, they have no choice, because the government noted that it was "technologically feasible" without considering was it "r
        • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:2, Interesting)

          by TheGax ( 572856 )
          With Vonage, the calls have a range of 30 kbps to 90 kbps. So to store the calls at 8k you would have to process those calls first. So then you're talking about having a ton of processing capacity before you store those "tiny" calls.
          So if there is no processing then the storage increases (at least) by about a factor of 4 to nearly $5 million a day or $1.8 billion a year. That's a ton of cash to spend on something that may only have about 0.01% of "usable" information to the evil government.
          And we're still
        • $500 million is quite a bit for a company to pay out, but just under $9 million to archive a week's worth of calls? That sounds very do-able.
        • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Craig Ringer ( 302899 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @08:21AM (#9928388) Homepage Journal
          "Storage is somewhere around a buck a gig"

          Hmm. I'd have to take issue with that. In small, independent, non-redundant systems storage might be as little as $1/GB.

          If you're building a large SAN or storage farm, there won't be a "little" overhead. Rather, the chances are the actual storage cost will be a small part of the overall costs of space, power, maintainance, administration, monitoring, legal compliance and BACKUPS.

          I'd be gobsmacked if it was less than $5/GB to start out with a storage farm (and unsurprised if it was ten times that), and I couldn't give you a running cost per GB but I wouldn't be surprised if it was several bucks per year.

          Even our storage server at work, which only has 830GB of usable storage (1.7TB raw storage) cost a lot more than a buck a gig. Closer to $10/GB, in fact. Admittedly we didn't buy well and didn't buy at a good time, but even so that's for slow, cheap storage.

          Looking at, say, raw 2TB NAS devices advertised, they seem to go for between US$6000 and US$10000 - and that's initial purchase of a standalone device, not counting any of the above costs. That's also an SATA based unit, and most won't really fit well in large, complex storage networks.

          If you start talking SAN gear, well ... you'd need to put the price in $/GB to stop your eyes falling out ;-)

          Here's a link that might be interesting: SAN Case study [storagepipeline.com]:

          [Anders Lofgren, senior industry analyst at Forrester Research Inc] said high-end storage implementations cost on average about $50 per gigabyte, or $50,000 per TB. But he cautioned that such numbers don't reflect the redundancy most users require and other variables like the number of ports and servers in the mix. Then there's the requirement for management software, which will also increase the price, Lofgren said.

          Even if we allow for the questionable wisdom of analysts, I think the quoted article is fairly belivable. It also reflects my extrapolation of my own experience of storage management.

          I'm not claiming that your scenario is impossible (though I think you've totally neglected the processing costs and need for pre-downprocessing temporary storage of all that audio), just that it'd cost a LOT more than you describe.

          • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Malor ( 3658 ) *
            You are correct in pretty much everything you say -- these things did cross my mind while I was posting (mostly that management is expensive), but it depends on what they want. If the idea is to just archive everything and then pull back specific records on people with a search warrant, that's simpler than trying to truly process and search all that data.

            What prompted my post was the great(-great?) grandparent post about tinfoil hats. This wasn't meant as an exhaustive study, just an observation that it'
        • Considering Vonage's "secure" service is down again, meaning I can't check my Voice Mail, I wouldn't worry too much about this. They can't even figure out how to let faxes go through properly.
      • Ever see a Tape Room in a phone exchange? At the height of the anti-commie scare, all new exchanges had enough room for the equipment to record something like 1 in 10 calls. This isn't new, its been around for decades.
    • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > This -- as well as the potential long-term storage of all content that passes
      > through Vonage's network -- is why I think it's crazy people are so gung-ho
      > about unregulated 'phone' service. Just one more sacrificial lamb to the
      > information economy.

      Just one more reason to encrypt your phone calls.
      • Re:Privacy etc. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sploo22 ( 748838 )
        I thought the whole point of using Vonage et al. was that you could connect to normal phones. Obviously they won't be able to get around whatever scrambling you come up with, so there's no point in signing up in the first place. Or is there some telephone scrambling standard I've never heard of?
  • Sorry folks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oasis3582 ( 698323 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @06:56AM (#9927889)
    Sorry people, but no one is making you sign up for these services. Don't like that Gmail scans your inbox for advertising purposes? Don't bitch...just don't sign up. If it strikes a nerve with enough people that actually bother to read the ToS, then they will be forced to revise them. VoIP providers are no exception.
    • by empaler ( 130732 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:01AM (#9927906) Journal
      I'm glad that there are people out there willing to start a debate on what is acceptable or not in this regard.
      What really bothers me is people who do not recognize that this is the cornerstone of democracy (a healthy debate).
    • Re:Sorry folks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zebbers ( 134389 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:07AM (#9927932)
      Jesus christ. You know. Free market does not always work. Sometimes people do need to be protected from massive corporations.

      This isn't email- inherently insecure. This is voice communications. Voice communications that recently began the trek to being legislated as such...with 911, taxes, etc.

      Wake up and smell the coffee. There are plenty of places people would like to "take a stand" but it's kind of hard to take a stand against million dollar corporations who really don't give a shit. We need to collectively stand up and say(legislate) you can't do this and must do this....because if we DONT, they WONT. It's that simple. Corporations do not care about people.
      • Re:Sorry folks (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jkrise ( 535370 )
        "Sometimes people do need to be protected from massive corporations."

        There are other massive corporations waiting to prvide such services!

        Actually, people need to be protected from other people - more harm is caused by a few rich idiotic customers than lousy products.

        -
        • Re:Sorry folks (Score:3, Interesting)

          With that attitude you end up with the EULA mess you've got on Windows where people actually copy and paste each others EULAs because they feel they should have one.

          No no, if we want this sort of thing to stop, better to nip it in the bud before it becomes a culture.

      • Re:Sorry folks (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rebel47 ( 753695 )
        Corporations don't care about people and neither do politicians. All politicians care about is: 1. Getting elected, and 2. Getting re-elected.
      • Re:Sorry folks (Score:5, Insightful)

        by maximilln ( 654768 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @08:00AM (#9928239) Homepage Journal
        You know. Free market does not always work. Sometimes people do need to be protected from massive corporations

        Let's work hard to dispel another illusion. We do _NOT_ need to be protected from massive corporations. What we need is for our politicians to _STOP_ protecting big corporations from us.

        A technical difference of words, maybe, but it illustrates the fact that we do not function in a free market in the US. We have thousands and thousands of rules and regulations on our free market and all of those rules and regulations require a financial budget and a legal team to enforce. Our free market is thus skewed in favor of large corporations and against the interest of the individual citizens.

        We need to collectively stand up and say(legislate) you can't do this and must do this

        What we need is to _REMOVE_ all the protecting legislation which is supposed to protect us but, because of monetary fact, only protects corporations.
        • Re:Sorry folks (Score:3, Insightful)

          We do _NOT_ need to be protected from massive corporations. What we need is for our politicians to _STOP_ protecting big corporations from us.

          That's an interesting viewpoint. I'd agree with it to an extent, but I also think that, for example, worker safety laws are pretty damn important. Businesses will intimidate and take advantage of employees and customers if there aren't consequences to those actions.

          I heard an interesting report about the towing industry just last night. Apparently, in the Baltimore
        • Re:Sorry folks (Score:3, Interesting)

          by mpe ( 36238 )
          What we need is to _REMOVE_ all the protecting legislation which is supposed to protect us but, because of monetary fact, only protects corporations.

          It might well be better to get rid of the semi-personhood status of corporations. Either go back to their being something other than "people". Or treat them entirely as "people", including being jailed if they break the law and subject to compulsary medical treatment if they are diagnosed as insane...
    • What if the VoIP service saves a lot of $$ for the buyer? Should the market allow a vendor to get away with unreasonable Ts and Cs just bcos the alternatives are frightfully more expensive?

      If only the customers had stood up to onerous EULAs, the s/w industry might be in a different shape today.

      -
    • Re:Sorry folks (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:29AM (#9928031)
      Yeah, sure. I can select a VoIP-provider with sensible ToS, but what happens when I call a friend or corporation which uses one of the bad VoIP-providers?
    • No, it's a republic. Go look up the difference if you don't know it.

      I believe that there are cases where the principal that governs a republic - that the welfare of the individual should be upheld by society despite the view of the masses - should basically hold sway over all public goods and services. Further, I would say that sticking that line in a EULA somewhere violates that protection.

      You're basically saying, "sorry, it doesn't work that way, their conduct is dependant soley on our monetary votes.
    • I agree. Actually I'm also quite surprised, with all the tough talk about how unenforcable EULAs are, people bitch about this stuff in the first place. Which is it? EULAs are worthless or we should force corporations to bend to the whims of a fickle community of people because they fear the ToS they must comply with before using a service?
    • If the 'free'market saves a company money, it GOOD!
      If the 'free'market saves a person some money, at the expensive of a company, that's BAD and means laws have to be passed to stop it.

    • Re:Sorry folks (Score:2, Interesting)

      by blackest_k ( 761565 )
      Don't Bitch you say,
      how often does anyone read the complete terms and conditions? bitching about them especially on places like slashdot is a useful service. It's not like you can type bad press and a company name into google and find out exactly where the agreement stitches up the user/subscriber

      Bitch away and forewarn people of dodgy conracts before they sign one.
  • by slakdrgn ( 531347 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @06:57AM (#9927894) Homepage
    I looked around for quite some time on a VoIP provider and eventually settled on callVantage. There are some annoying things (cannot run behind router, wants to be first machine in line, so I had to get a 2nd IP addy from the cable company) with using this, however, their ToS isn't as bad as most other VoIP providers. Plus, though they are a rather large phone company, they have pressure on them to make this work because of their regualer landline & corporate services. I'm sure they take liberties with this being unregulated, however, they will be more noticed and have more pressure should they screw up. So far so good, quality has been wonderful, hardly any cutout or breaky voices due to downloading a lot (slackware off bt). The modem they provide isn't half-bad, and I got to talk my wife into letting me get a 2nd DHCP address, which provides a few other advantages for me. Plus, its a good $30.00 cheaper then the local lec.
  • legality (Score:4, Interesting)

    by garaux ( 515436 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @06:58AM (#9927898)
    So don't do anything illegal. Be serious, look at any of the forums on http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/voip [broadbandreports.com] regarding VOIP. Do you really think these companies have the time to keep up with monitoring your conversations and such when they barely stay afloat with user demand?
    • Re:legality (Score:3, Insightful)

      Do you really think these companies have the time to keep up with monitoring your conversations and such when they barely stay afloat with user demand?

      No, but I'm sure there are those who have the time to make false complaints against you thereby causing your telco to zip up your phone convo's and forward them to the FBI.

    • Re:legality (Score:5, Insightful)

      by linuxtelephony ( 141049 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @08:10AM (#9928302) Homepage
      I am sick of hearing people say "just don't do anything illegal" or "if you don't have anything to hide, why do you care".

      Just because something is legal today doesn't mean that it will be legal tomorrow. So, today they record and monitor voice and data traffic "for our safety". Tomorrow, suppose it is illegal to read something like slashdot, or that it becomes illegal to say certain words. The most likely example is that fair use rights will be minimized until they are practically non-existant.

      Yes, those are somewhat far-fetched examples, but I hope it gets the point across. Every day, it seems, new laws are passed. Some may be good, others, such as the DMCA, are much more questionable. Sure, today nothing you do is illegal, so of course you have nothing to hide. But, can you be sure that tomorrow won't come and new laws make you a criminal? At the current rate, eventually everyone will be a criminal to one degree or another.

      The laws are so numerous and cover so many details that it sometimes becomes virtually impossible to follow all of them. Take for instance the roads in cities like San Francisco that ban vehicles over 6,000 pounds GVW [msn.com]. This includes just about all full size SUVs, not to mention the big pickup trucks. Most people would not realize the signs apply to their SUVs. They didn't set out with the intent to break the law, they were just driving down the street.

      So, the next time someone says "if you have nothing to hide, why do you care ...", think about it, and tell them why.
      • A more compelling argument against the "nothing to hide" idiots is that they assume that all civil authorities are 100% honest, diligent, and trustworthy public servants, and could never have any agenda other than the dispassionate enforcement of the law. Unfortunately, they are completely doe-eyed about this point.

        The reason why the U.S. Constitution once protected citizens from unlimited government power is that such power can and will be abused. When unlimited power can be abused, you are no longer secur

    • Re:legality (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hendridm ( 302246 ) *
      It's not the feasibility that's as important as the precedent it sets. This is just one more chip off of our freedom. The more you allow you freedom to be taken away, the easier it is to take more, especially when they think you'll stand for it as long as you can get a good deal on long distance or save a nickel on a gallon of gas.
  • This is nothing new. (Score:4, Informative)

    by slimyrubber ( 791109 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:01AM (#9927911)
    WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Internet phone systems, seen as the wave of the future in telecommunications, must be set up in such a way that conversations can be monitored by police and intelligence agencies, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said in a tentative ruling on Wednesday.

    By a vote of 5-0, the FCC said "Voice over Internet Protocol," or VoIP, providers should be subject to the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which ensures that law enforcers will be able to keep up with changing communications technologies.

    The law does not apply to Internet-based communications but VoIP providers such as Vonage must comply because they are likely to replace much traditional phone service, the commission said.

    The Justice Department, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have argued that they must be able to monitor suspicious calls no matter how they are made and have pushed the FCC to adopt rules so they will always have access.

    Technology advocates have worried that the fast-growing service, which promises to slash costs by routing phone calls over the Internet, could be harmed by excessive regulation.

    The ruling does not affect other pending regulatory questions surrounding VoIP service, such as how it should be taxed, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said.

    "Our tentative conclusion, while correct, is expressly limited to the requirements of the CALEA statute and does not indicate a willingness on my part to find that VoIP services are telecommunications services," Powell said at a commission meeting.

    Several commissioners said this attempt to avoid larger regulatory questions weakened the legal argument underpinning the ruling, though they all voted to support it.

    "There are less roundabout ways to achieve this result than the collection of tentative conclusions we offer here, and there are better ways to build a system that will guarantee judicial approval," said Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat.

    The ruling does not apply to "non-managed" VoIP services like Skype, which have more in common with file-trading networks like Kazaa than traditional phone networks.

    Skype offers "peer to peer" software that allows users to talk directly with each other rather than going through pathways set up by the carrier.

    Separately, the FCC ruled that commercial "push to talk" services offered by wireless providers like Nextel Communications Inc. would be subject to CALEA.

    The ruling on "push to talk" services is final, but the FCC will accept further public comments before making its ruling on VoIP final.

    The FCC has yet to determine how long VoIP carriers need to comply with wiretap laws, and whether outside companies can manage compliance for these carriers.

    VoIP carriers offer subscribers a low monthly fee for nationwide calls and discount rates for international connections.

    Major traditional carriers like Verizon Communications and AT&T Corp. have launched VoIP offerings to match services offered by independent start-ups like Vonage.

    Research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that 17 percent of North American phone lines will be replaced with VoIP lines by 2008.

    -- Reuters [reuters.com]
  • by drakyri ( 727902 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:01AM (#9927912)
    Corporations have been writing licenses of this sort for a long time - some of the worst are the ones that come packaged with software or that are hidden in 1 pt. font on websites.

    They're a little dated, but for more information, check out these links at the Consumer Project on Technology [cptech.org]:
    UCITA [cptech.org]
    Questionable Licenses [cptech.org]

    And here's a link to an old /. article on the subject.

    Slashdot | Questionable EULA's [slashdot.org]
  • Money or privacy? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jebilbrey ( 764968 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:04AM (#9927921) Homepage
    I currently use Vonage, and I can tell you this. At $15 per month, I'm willing to give up a little to save money. Before Vonage I was paying $50+ a month for my local/long distance carrier. And that $50 only gave me a few added services. Now with Vonage I have every option service under the sun (three way calling, voicemail, caller id, etc etc.) I don't plan to do anything illegal, so if they share some info about me I'm not that worried. Then again, I wasn't aware that they had complete free reign over my informtion, so I do plan to write some letters asking them to change their policies. I think overall though, just like anything else, you have to weigh your own concerns over privacy vs cost and make a decision that works for you.
    • Re:Money or privacy? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by lachlan76 ( 770870 )
      He who gives up liberty for security deserves neither.

      For security, I can understand why, but, to give up your rights for cheaper phone calls????
      • Shut up, parrot. This doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with liberty. It has to do with the exact same shit that phone companies have been doing for years. If they believe you are using their phone lines for illegal means, they will report you. It's as simple as that. It's quite simple, really. Don't do illegal shit over Vonage wires.
      • So he wants to give up the potential of carrying out an illegal act over one of these services, does that really mean he shouldnt deserve liberty at all? What about the right to drive a motor vehicle in any way, method and place he wants? What about driving after having a few to drink? Hes given up those rights so he is a little more secure in the fact that so has everyone else. The right to kill someone? Again, hes given up that right so he is a little more secure in the fact that its less likely to ha
    • by sg3000 ( 87992 ) * <(sg_public) (at) (mac.com)> on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:37AM (#9928074)
      Because you may already have:

      You acknowledge and understand that when you dial 911 from your Vonage equipment it is intended that you will be routed to the general telephone number for the PSAP or local emergency service provider (which may not be answered outside business hours), and
      may not be routed to the 911 dispatcher(s) who are specifically designated to receive incoming 911 calls using traditional 911 dialing.... You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Vonage and its third party provider from any claim or action arising out of misroutes of 911 calls, including but not limited to your failure to follow correct activation procedures for 911 calling or your provision to Vonage of incorrect information in connection therewith.


      In other news, for those of us using Mac OS X and Safari-- remember, whenever they give you obnoxiously long terms of service to read, use the "Summarize" service.
  • by Jorgensen ( 313325 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:05AM (#9927925) Homepage
    Isn't this just a result of:

    (a) Companies trying to cover their own back: Litigation is best avoided, so any responsibility will be pushed towards the customer - or at least away from the company.

    (b) Profit: If they can "sneak in" terms that allow them to profit from *your* details, then they will try. Or at least, they don't want to be in a situation where they *cannot* do so, so they are better off asking for your concent first.

    (c) Law Enforcement Agencies: Even if the agencies do not explicitly ask the providers for ease of tapping (perhaps they do? I dunno), they still think of voip as a telephone alternative, hence the same rules apply.

    Really, this isn't so different from the EULAs from email providers, is it?

    After all, if you want to keep things secret, ENCRYPT THEM : http://www.gnupg.org

    Just my 2p...
  • Fact of the matter is, nobody except people like us really care to even know about this. I don't know a single non dork who actually reads anything when installing new software. In fact when one of my friends wanted to install windows 2000, (who knows why) the installer told him they currently had no driver for his modem and he installed anyway! If voip ever reaches far enough beyond the realm of computer dorks, this probably will go unnoticed.

    Because of this I can't really say that I blame companies l

  • Shop Around (Score:5, Informative)

    by wackysootroom ( 243310 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:12AM (#9927951) Homepage
    VOIP is becoming a big business. If you don't like one provider, try a different one. NuFone [nufone.net] is a good one. It works extremely well with Asterisk [asterisk.org] too.
  • IINAL of course but it's my understanding US contract law will not allow a clause such as "we can change this at anytime and you're bound by the new terms." They can, of course, change it at any time but unless they notify you it's being changed and you're given a chance to read the changes and cancel service/your contract they won't be able to enforce the changes. They can sue you all they want but the court will likely throw it out quickly.

    Of course nowadays anything might be possible, but I'm pretty

  • Patriot Act (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SarcasticTester ( 586529 ) <martijnNO@SPAMdevrieze.org> on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:15AM (#9927964) Homepage
    I agree these practices are not quite nice, but come on, look at the EULA you sign with just about any kind of service provider online. But did any of you ever stop to think about the difference between having and not having this kind of agreement?? Cause if you ask me, it doesn't make a difference. Have a look at the Patriot Act, that basically states that the US government doesn't care about your rights, they reserver the right to shove just about anyhing up your behind without giving you any notice at all!
  • What do you expect?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tezza ( 539307 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:16AM (#9927974)
    Traditional Telcos are governed by 'Traditional Laws' built up over a long period of time

    These pioneers exist on the forefront of legal boundaries. A few years ago there was debate about whether foreign countries selling goods over the internet were bound by laws at the point of purchase or the location of the vendor. [accc.gov.au]

    VOIP have the same problem of uncertain legal comeback. What happens if you're making a call to/through China, and Beijing wants to have a listen? A major international dispute could erupt, and these companies don't want to be caught in the middle. These laws haven't even solidied in any one country, let alone across borders

    It's not that they want to be Big Brother, it's just if Uncle Sam comes asking, they've let you know that they could hand over the information.

    If a Vonage conversation trapped a paedophile who was grooming children, that's a pretty darn good argument for handing over the evidence. Maybe [the tapping] not legal in some countries, but what about others?

    People who know how to construct tin foil hats should use encryption, plain and simple.

    • by base3 ( 539820 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:26AM (#9928016)
      If a Vonage conversation trapped a paedophile who was grooming children, that's a pretty darn good argument for handing over the evidence. Maybe [the tapping] not legal in some countries, but what about others?

      Of course! Think of the children! I expect politicians to trot this out every time they're eroding our rights. I fear for the Republic when ordinary citizens start doing so.

      • Of course! Think of the children! I expect politicians to trot this out every time they're eroding our rights. I fear for the Republic when ordinary citizens start doing so.

        The masses are sheep. I expect them to jump at shadows.

        Of course 'terrorists' are the latest fade fear. My sister in law calls my wife every time something 'terrorist' related happens. She called when a 21 yr old took a plane joy riding [chron.com] into powerlines. She called when a Military Hummer [go.com]was stolen. She calls all the time with thes
      • I for one am trying very hard not to think of the children.

        -- Michael Jackson

    • If a Vonage conversation trapped a paedophile who was grooming children, that's a pretty darn good argument for handing over the evidence.

      Ok first of all, how are paedophiles currently caught? If they are caught without having to tap VoIP phone calls, then I fail to see any reason for Vonage's TOS to be any different from a regular telco. And if they are currently not caught very easily, I fail to see how tapping somebody's phone going to help. Ok but suppose tapping somebody's phone does help - it stil
    • If a Vonage conversation trapped a paedophile who was grooming children, that's a pretty darn good argument for handing over the evidence

      It's a crappy argument since I have yet, in my 29 blessed years on this planet, to see evidence that a wiretap has tipped authorities off to someone that they hadn't already identified through conventional, less Big Brother style means. Once. All I'm asking is once. Show me _ONE TIME_ when spying on our own citizens has prevented a crime. There are hundreds of instan
  • by philbert26 ( 705644 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:19AM (#9927988)
    From the Vonage website:

    1.3.1 Prohibited Uses You agree to use the Service and Device only for lawful purposes. This means that you agree not to use them for transmitting or receiving any communication or material of any kind when in Vonage's sole judgment the transmission, receipt or possession of such communication or material (i) would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or (ii) encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to a civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law....If Vonage, in its sole discretion believes that you have violated the above restrictions etc etc.

    So not only do you have to avoid criminal actions, you also have to avoid civil liability. And Vonage can, of course, use their "sole discretion" to decide what is and is not illegal / slanderous / whatever.

    People will call this a tinfoil hat case, because in practice, Vonage will not have the resources to spy on people and turn them in if they say something bad. But that sounds very much like security through obscurity. The government and corporations are building a society where privacy can be violated at will. Sure, 99% of people will be unaffected, but then most Soviets weren't picked up by the KGB, and most Iraqis weren't arrested by Saddam Hussein's mob. The "if you've nothing to hid, you've nothing to fear" argument carries much weight with the general public -- as if no innocent people have ever been harmed by their government!

    • The government and corporations are building a society where privacy can be violated at will

      I side with you but there's a legal squirrel in the whole business which comes from the 4th Amendment

      The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or thin

  • I am not concerned (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sckeener ( 137243 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:30AM (#9928039)
    I agree the terms sound annoying, but you can understand why they did it.
    The Department of Justice would be all over Vonage if VoIP services were being used by criminals or even worse by 'terrorists.'

    It wasn't until recently that the fcc ruled VoIP must be tappable. [slashdot.org] Give them some more time. They might change their TOS in light of this FCC ruling.
  • Once again a /. informant has become overzealous en route to forming a coalition of tinfoil-laden individuals.

    Courts tend to take most EULAs with a grain of salt - they frown on "legally binding agreements" where one party can not alter the terms of the agreement. The main logic here is... let's say a corporation you're subscribed to offers a new service, and retroactively changes the TOS to abide by the rules applicable to that given service. Say that the added clause is, "our constituents, lessees of a
  • Okay, I agree that if the EULA sez: "say something objectionable, and we'll forward tapes of all your calls to the police, FBI, and your mom" then this is bad. But perhaps this just covers communications with their customer support people? For example, if I call up and start threatening to kill the service rep, isn't it reasonable (and probably responsible) for the company to report me to the relevant authorities if they think I might be serious?

    I have to admit haven't managed to find the section the a

  • by HawkinsD ( 267367 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @07:47AM (#9928145)
    My favorite reality-twisting part of the license:
    You acknowledge and understand that the Service is not a telephone service.
    Ah. Their only product is the delivery of voice calls and faxes, using... um... telephones. But they're not a telephone company.
    • Ah. Their only product is the delivery of voice calls and faxes, using... um... telephones. But they're not a telephone company.

      They're not! They're "The Broadband Phone Company!"

    • They cant call themselves a telephone company or say that they sell a telephone service, because that places them under regulations and laws which cover EXACTLY this sort of thing mentioned in the article. Of course, there is a downside in that they are required to provide 911 services etc and other things that cost them money.

      As I said in another post in this story, the matter of regulation swings both ways. It protects you while costing you a little more money. This is one of those events that point
  • What about transparent end-point to end-point encryption over VoIP? Not part of the VoIP standard(s)? If not, why?

  • by Jason Hood ( 721277 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @08:30AM (#9928461)
    If you dont break the law, you have nothing to worry about.

    I am sure that they do not sit and listen and record content of calls all day long. They do however drop in from time to time to examine quality and misuse (misuse being defined as anyone who knowing tries to circumvent restrictions or steals access). Phone companies already do the same thing and have done so for years. I know, I have worked for one.

    This "news" is simply more propoganda created by the makers of tin foil. Damnit they must be rich.

    • Well, of course if you don't break the law you don't have to worry about anything... except maybe your privacy.
      I'm sure you don't mind of some weird techician stumbles about you have phone-xxx with your GF or you talking to your doctor about [emberassing disease XYZ]. And I'm sure that NEVER EVER might one of them be tempted to record your emberrasing conversation and post it on the internet...
      To spell it out: Invasion in your privacy is BAD. And this is a serious invasion in your privacy.
    • If you dont break the law, you have nothing to worry about.

      Is that really true?

      While it may work if Section 1.3.1 was by itself, it's not the only thing in the document. Section 6.2 describes the Governing Law under the "agreement", being either New Jersey or appropriate Canadian law. As a result, you can't exactly be sure whether or not Vonage will forward the information to authorities when you break some obscure New Jersey law. (Note that the critical Section 1.3.1 also includes Civil liability

  • When people buy stuff online or sign up for services such as our hosting, they often pay by credit card. The best way right now to verify a credit card transaction is to call the phone number and speak to a cardholder. With Vonage someone can register a fake phone number in any area code, so they can get one that is in the same town as the cardholder whose card they stole.

    We run into credit card fraud often enough and we're so sick of it that make every effort to report the fraud to the credit card compan

  • Price Changes (Score:3, Informative)

    by Chris Tyler ( 2180 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @09:50AM (#9929374) Homepage
    The other thing that I've found disturbing (about Vonage in this case) is that they can (and do!) change their prices without warning.

    I just happened to notice that their international call rates from Canada to Asia and Europe went up the other day -- still only a few cents per minute, but 5c/min --> 8c/min is a 60% increase! -- and they didn't mention this to customers (not as a note at the bottom of the bill, not as a note on their website, no notification at all).
  • Another good reason to hail the softphone, autoencrypted by keys in its addressbook. Goodbye snoops, goodbye phone "numbers", hello privacy and ease. Vonage offers a 1st gen SIP softphone for Windows and PocketPC, with PalmOS planned for this year. Where's a standard PalmOS SIP softphone with addressbook-integrated encryption?
  • by DirkDaring ( 91233 ) on Tuesday August 10, 2004 @12:25PM (#9931319)
    "Mandatory Arbitration. Any dispute or claim between End User and 8x8 arising out of or relating to the Service or Equipment provided in connection with this Agreement shall be resolved by arbitration before a single arbitrator administered by the American Arbitration Association in accordance with its Commercial Arbitration Rules . The arbitration shall take place in San Jose, California and shall be conducted in English. The arbitrator's decision shall follow the plain meaning of the relevant documents, and shall be final and binding. Without limiting the foregoing, the parties agree that no arbitrator has the authority to: (i) award relief in excess of what this Agreement provides; or (ii) award punitive or exemplary damages. Judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrators may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. All claims shall be arbitrated individually and Customer will not bring, or join any class action of any kind in court or in arbitration or seek to consolidate or bring previously consolidated claims in arbitration. CUSTOMER ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THIS ARBITRATION PROVISION CONSTITUTES A WAIVER OF ANY RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL."

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