New Law Finally Bans Bullshit Cable TV Fees 49
After a longstanding campaign by Consumer Reports, The Television Viewer Protection Act of 2019 passed the House and the Senate last week buried inside a giant appropriations bill that now awaits President Trump's signature. Techdirt reports: The bill bans ISPs from charging you extra to rent hardware you already own (something ISPs like Frontier have been doing without penalty for a few years). It also forces cable TV providers to send an itemized list of any fees and other surcharges to new customers within 24 hours of signing up for service, and allows users shocked by the higher price to cancel service without penalty.
The bill's not perfect. Because of the act itself it largely only applies to cable TV, not broadband service where the problem is just as bad. And cable TV providers can still falsely advertise a lower rate, thanks to what appears to be some last minute lobbying magic on the part of the cable TV sector: "Initial versions of the legislation actually had the provision as truth in advertising, so you had to advertise the entire fees," said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public-interest group. "But it's still an improvement over what currently exists, because you have a right to cancel after signing up." The trick now will be enforcement by a government and FCC that has routinely shown it's entirely cool with industry repeatedly ripping consumers off with bullshit fees to the tune of around $28 billion annually.
The bill's not perfect. Because of the act itself it largely only applies to cable TV, not broadband service where the problem is just as bad. And cable TV providers can still falsely advertise a lower rate, thanks to what appears to be some last minute lobbying magic on the part of the cable TV sector: "Initial versions of the legislation actually had the provision as truth in advertising, so you had to advertise the entire fees," said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public-interest group. "But it's still an improvement over what currently exists, because you have a right to cancel after signing up." The trick now will be enforcement by a government and FCC that has routinely shown it's entirely cool with industry repeatedly ripping consumers off with bullshit fees to the tune of around $28 billion annually.
Go home, Catholiban! (Score:1)
Words aren't bad.
Your mind makes them bad. That is your mind.
Go watch some cure [youtu.be]before you become a cardinal and rape more children.
Signed,
a honkey.
Re:Hey! Language!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot's devolution is almost complete.
Some things transcend clinical language.
Profane violations of decency deserve profane description. Consumers are not "being subjected to hidden billing practices". They are "being fucked by bullshit fees." The unscrupulous practices are - in my opinion - so egregious that conventional, passive, language is insufficient. To Godwin, Hitler wasn't a "bad man". He was a genocidal psychopathic asshole.
If your lexicon can't handle 10-bit colour, you're missing out on a whole HDR verbal gamut that adds nuance and gradients of description that no number of "very, very, very" modifiers can convey. While I don't endorse HDR language in the presence of children, it's primarily because they parrot things and will sooner or later offend delicate flowers, without knowing they're doing it. Adults are better equipped to deal with the fallout of their language choices.
Final comment on language sensitivity. It's bullshit. The vast majority of foul-language-disapprovers are hypocritical, offering "fiddlesticks" technicalities in place of "fuck" when they injure themselves, or "darn it all" when applying condemnation. Look. Those of us with non-zero IQs know perfectly well what's meant. Potty-mouth. I am of the opinion that inclusion of profanity - where useful for conveying severity - is a Good Thing, and an evolution of society to accept that extreme circumstances justify extreme language. Anyone who can't - or won't - cope is kind of a jackass.
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Re:Hey! Language!! (Score:5, Funny)
This is a late contender for Best Slashdot Comment of 2019. It's not only +5 Insightful, but beautifully and poetically written. I'm always pleased to find fellow Slashdot readers who appreciate richness in language. Clearly, PsychoSlashDot is someone who has had some education in Humanities. The only thing I would add is that profanity should not be limited to condemnation. These are words with weight, with impact. Love them. Use them.
Good job, motherfucker.
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Some things transcend clinical language.
Two pieces of long-term good news this morning, and one of them even comes from the Trump administration.
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mod parent up to +100
The real question. (Score:1, Troll)
I am betting no.
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Will Trumpy sign it? I am betting no.
Well it isn't just plain old cable, this is 'Bullshit Cable', so maybe he'll follow up his veto by investing in this emerging technology? Seems like something people might want, a cable that pumps bullshit into your living room 24/7, kind of like Fox Ne .... uh ... never mind.
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Will Trumpy sign it?
I am betting no.
Well it isn't just plain old cable, this is 'Bullshit Cable', so maybe he'll follow up his veto by investing in this emerging technology? Seems like something people might want, a cable that pumps bullshit into your living room 24/7, kind of like Fox Ne .... uh ... never mind.
Don't you mean Quid Pro Funem ?
Re: The real question. (Score:3)
You know it's funny, their own professional code of ethics explicitly says that rendering an analysis of a patient you've never seen in-person or directly interviewed is wrong. But what do professional standards matter, orange man bad!
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There's precedent. A bipartisan bill was passed that would have resulted in lower prices for the top 250 prescription drugs. But apparently it is socialism to negotiate a better price with your suppliers, so it was not signed into law, and we will continue with the current status quo of drug companies raising prices every year at 3x the rate of inflation.
A dangerous improvement! (Score:1)
Because if this becomes "good enough", then no motivation to fix the rest will be left.
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10 minutes later... (Score:2)
A bullshit loophole is found, and they continue charging what they charge + interest, for the loss in legal fees.
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and they also know that their ringer in the FCC chair-organism position will make sure they don't get forced to do anything they don't like.
not going to help (Score:2)
for example, take box rental fees for what you own. they will just rename it to connection fee to allow the box on their network. what they should have done make all fees except tax and other governmental mandated ones part of the contract where they cannot add to or raise until the end of the contract period. the contracts are too one sided.
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And if there is no contract?
The list of BS fees (Score:2)
Hmmmm. (Score:2, Interesting)
IANAL, which is an advantage. You Americans love to sue. So. An undisclosed fee charged after contract negotiation of the contract price can be characterized as "extortion". Furthermore, the proper recourse for prosecution of "extorters" is for the State Attorney-General to bring proceedings to throw the criminal in jail. Apparently this is not happening. Your individual proper remedy is therefore to commence an action against the Attorney-General for a declaration binding on the Attorney-General that
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Yeah, but most of the contracts you sign include binding arbitration clauses, whereby you give up your right to sue. And who actually reads everything they sign? I do but most people don't.
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Yeah, but most of the contracts you sign include binding arbitration clauses, whereby you give up your right to sue. And who actually reads everything they sign? I do but most people don't.
Yeah you read them, then you see a whole bunch of shit you don't like and agree anyway. It's not like you are going to negotiate terms.
No one that "reads the contract" would ever have a cell phone or an ISP, or access to most of the web otherwise.
You click "don't agree" and your device / service is a brick.
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Change in charges (Score:5, Informative)
And thus the ISPs are already changing what they charge. I was looking at a new CenturyLink contract this month. I shit you not, they are charging $5/mo to have the Wi-Fi access point enabled on their modems now. You're no longer renting the hardware, but instead "renting" the "extra features and services"
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Can't you disable the feature and lose the fee?
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Probably. But that isn't entirely the point. The point is that the overwhelming vast majority of people don't know how to do things like that and have never been in their device configs, so the ISP can just say "fuck the law" and skirt around it.
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Good. I do not want Children's Band enabled.
Re: Change in charges (Score:1)
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That's interesting. The first thing I've done with any of their modem/routers is to figure out how to put into bridge mode. Then I plug my router into it.
It used to be I had to call their tech support to get my PPPoE username and password to get connected in this manner, but the last time their self-installation setup gave my login information so I didn't have to. I have to wonder if this won't be so easy, or even possible the next time around. As it is, I the modem/router I had to purchase from them has
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In my particular case, I *HAD* to disable wifi. Even though it is a residential fiber connection, I still got myself a block of static IP addresses as well as IPv6 support. For whatever reason, 1gbps bandwidth + the ipv4 static block + ipv6 + wifi all enabled at once would crash their router. Just disabling wifi made it stable. I've tried running in bridge mode (i do at a secondary location with dynamic IP), but i couldn't get that to work with the full block of statics with routing.
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So ... (Score:2)
Androidpeaks (Score:1)
NOTHING has changed. ./ fell for it. So did ars. (Score:1, Interesting)
The FCC has shown it won't do anything. It's ruler is the former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai. The guy who should oversee him is former Verizon lawyer US Attorney bill barr. The guy who oversees them is orange orangutan donald "I think my daughter is a hot piece of ass" trump.
This bill doesn't create "truth" in anything. All it does is... "if they lie to you you can quit them". Now go compare that with your rights under contract law (that's what this amends... contract law) and BREACH OF CONTRACT.
Sorry, Sla
False advertising, but not all the time (Score:1)
Re: False advertising, but not all the time (Score:2)
Since then, the biggest problem has been that the rate can nearly DOUBLE after the promo period
That's why it's called a a PROMOTIONAL rate, it's lowered to entice you to sign up.
The way the game works is you sign up for local cable with promo deal, when deal expires, go to satellite and take their promo deal. When that deal expires, go to the other satellite provider and take their promo offer, then when that expires circle back around to cable with a new promo deal.
Concession to reality (Score:2)
And cable TV providers can still falsely advertise a lower rate, thanks to what appears to be some last minute lobbying magic on the part of the cable TV sector: "Initial versions of the legislation actually had the provision as truth in advertising, so you had to advertise the entire fees," said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public-interest group.
The entire fees make advertising impossible, as a practical matter. "Entire fees" includes state and local taxes, which vary based on where a person lives, so running a cable tv ad offering service on a TV channel that is viewed in multiple states would require (for example) having a breakdown for NYC residents, NJ residents, Long Island residents and upstate New York residents, along with CT. That is the broadcast footprint of a NYC TV station, and that's just one example.
The itemized fee chart and estimat
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This cancellation policy is just BS. Cable companies already allow time to back out the contract. I know Comcast allows 30 days, Illinois laws actually requires 2 months for cable tv contracts
This law changes nothing.
The false advertising is mainly with the now popular Broadcast TV Fees and Regional sports fees which should be built into their package price since they are not for optional content. So they advertise and promote a rate, then when you actually sign up for service you see $20-30 of these "
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