AT&T: Say bad things and we'll cancel your internets
By Nicole Belle Sunday Sep 30, 2007 3:03pmNet neutrality, anyone? What an incredibly slippery slope we're now hurtling down...
Slashdot broke the news on Saturday that AT&T's updated terms of service for its high-speed Internet packages essentially forbid you from criticizing the company on pain of cancellation. The full terms of service are here, and here's the offending passage highlighted, courtesy of Ars Technica:
AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.
This is the exact kind of overbroad legalese that gets companies in trouble in ways they probably never thought of. If I am an AT&T subscriber, for example, and I post derogatory comments about AT&T on a site they own, does this give them leave to terminate my service? What if I post or send a complaint about AT&T to a complaint site or consumer news site, like ConsumerAffairs.Com (whom I write for), and they publish said complaint? Am I liable if I was using my AT&T ISP while writing said complaint? What if I did so while using my laptop at a Wi-Fi hotspot? The mind boggles.
Martin at S&R continues on with other egregious acts that AT&T has committed in the last few years, from cooperating with the Bush Administration on domestic wiretapping to blocking NARAL's text messages. And while Verizon's Terms of Service are no better, this kind of corporate fascism is truly disturbing. Tim Karr has more. Thankfully, I don't use AT&T or Verizon for my service, so I feel comfortable quoting William O. Douglas to them:
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
Remember that.
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Who would ever have an unkind word to say about AT&T?
AT&T, SUCK MY BALLS! CANCEL MY CELL SERVICE, nevermind, i'll do it myself you fu*king traitors.
[Crooks_and_Liars_Blocked_Me, we did it again. You need to ASK to come back, not just take it upon yourself to do so on your own-Sitemonitor]
gaze upon AT&T and bow to your new masters...
:roll: guess which service I have
I'm on w/ AT&T. Let me be the first to say they suck. There customer service is non-existent, and well, they just plain suck.
Somebody pleeeeease take this to court.
I love cingular and I hate the fact that AT&T and cingular merged.
No surprise coming from the corporation that let the NAS install a spying appliance in room 641A.
This is begging for an ACLU lawsuit.
Actually we have been using them for several years and had no problems with service. We did have a problem one time and they sent a guy out on Saturday morning to fix the problem. He was nice as hell and stayed until he got it right. Our service was only down overnight. I'm not kissing ass here, just sharing my experience.
"For the laaaaand of the freeeeeeeeeeeeee .... and the home of the *CLICK* We're sorry, your service has been disconnected --hehehe.
You got Bobby "Black Panther" Rush to thank for this mess. He loaned his name to the bill introduced by the oil-soaked Joe Barton in the name of "bipartisanship".
And a cool mil from AT&T didn't hurt, either.
Cancel your AT&T account. It's just like complaining about cable news, but keeping your cable....hello? The only thing understood clearly by corporations, is m-o-n-e-y. The only way to get their attention doesn't involve t-shirts, plastic wristbands or crank letters and emails...it's choking off their funds.
Stop using AT&T. Betcha there will be a host of excuses for people keeping it, like the crappy "iphone." The bottom line is and always will be :Don't give them money.
Ok that's it for me any suggestions for service in the SF Bay Area?
Cooperating with? Aren't they owned by the shrub co. crime machine?
"Slashdot broke the news on Saturday that AT&T’s updated terms of service for its high-speed Internet packages essentially forbid you from criticizing the company on pain of cancellation."
I'm surprised it isn't pain of death. Never fear, as long as slaves to greed run this nation it will come.
Don't use AT&T for anything. A very long time ago I had the misfortune of working for them. In my opinion they treat their employees like dirt, they're sneaky with their legal clauses in your contracts to trip up their own customers and they play dirty union-busting tricks. Their prices are usually too high for non-existent service. After several years of working for them and watching them screw over customers, I'd had enough. I will not have anything in my home that has AT&T on it. I'm hardly surprised that they've introduced this new clause in their internet contract. Next time they try to give you a sales pitch, run far away.
Stop using AT&T and then what? Have no internet? Spend three times as much for Comcast? It's not like there's many options here and I require the Internet to work. It's not simply a luxury.
Knowing what I do, I don't really think my other options are less shady as it is. Evil company A or Evil Company B?
I had nothing but problems with AT&T service. My plan kept changing and kept getting switch back to them after I left.
Finally I've been AT&T free for a few years and happier for it.
AT&T's problems must be getting unmanageable, if they have to resort to shutting people up, to hide them from view.
Okay. Who's better? (For cell phone service.)
This is what the luxuries of a duopoly/oligopoly bring.
Ditch the cell phone. It is nothing but a dog leash.
The real question which needs to be answered: is anybody in Washington aware of this and do they take this into account this do-nothing Congress keeps giving the big Internet ISPs all that they want?
We need to clean house in DC, folks - Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats fail us on Iraq and just about everything else. The Republicans do too but that's to be expected from them. They ALL need to go (except Sen. Boxer - she's doing great).
Tony @ 18:
Of course, where there is absolutely no other option, there isn't much choice, however, there are more than enough 'voluntary' customers to put a pothole in AT&T's hamster wheel. Check your area for other companies.
So, if you're an AT&T customer, email the FCC. :P
I don't see what all the fuss is about. I mean, I have AT&T internet, and while their service is marginal, overpriced, far slower than speeds offered by other providers in my service area (like DSLExtreme, for example), and generally amounts to a multi-year contract for a great steaming turd masquerading as internet access, I find it hard to believe that just because I use their sevice to say so publicly, they would decide to termina
All I can say is: WHEN WILL AMERICANS WAKE UP?
Oh yeah! Shop 'til you drop and goofy teevee shows. That's all that matter.
Udon Nomee @ 26:
Thanks for the 'spit-take'....:D
My husband has a cell phone he has to carry for work. If the job didn't pay for it, he wouldn't have it. The personal phone is a pay as you go unit that I put twenty dollars on whenever I run out of minutes because that's the absolute minimum I can buy. Neither of these are with AT&T but it doesn't matter. I hate the damn phone and if I could get away without one, I would.
Just boycott the bastards and hit them where it hurts: in the pocketbook.
Boycott AT & T and be over with it.
AT&T screwed me on the my cell service. Charged me an extra $200 for nothing. They would not refund me so I quite them.
As an ATT customer, I'll pull my punches on what I really think about this other than: IT's CONSISTENT.
Isn't this kind of like Coke saying if you write anything bad about us we will no longer allow you to buy our product? I don't see their benefit in doing this. Maybe I'm not running on all gears today or something.
[Dimples. You are comparing apples to oranges. If you like the 911 crap, visit those sites please. There are plenty of them from which to choose-Sitemonitor]
First they spy on us for BushCo and now we can't criticize them.
Ah I see that AT&T is learning from the best fascist government there is .
With that kind of tattling going on it's not Big Brother watching us, but Little Sister.
Weaseldog @ 22:
No, mine has a camera on it too.
I'm calling to cancel AT&T right this minute.
What do I need a land line for?
Nada.
So what kind of terms of agreements do the Big Five owners of the media have with their outlets?
Rusty Shackleford @ 38:
Your dawg ate your camera.
What's it doing, taking pictures of its worms?
SonovaBITCH!
I live in the middle of nowhere in IT terms, and I have exactly two high speed internet options: AT&T DSL or SuddenLink cable. I have DSL now, but that's because Cox (before they sold my market to Suddenlink) had such abominably bad service that it was almost as bad as none at all--it worked about 2/3 of the time, and just plain didn't the rest. Technically there's a local ISP, but they're just an AT&T reseller, and satellite is way too expensive for my budget.
If nothing else DSL has been functional (helps that I live a block from the switching station), but now I'm faced with supporting AT&T or going back to near-broken internet. Crap.
Maybe I won't have to make the decision, since I'm badmouthing them now so they'll just turn my service off.
Seems to me, that this is a sweet way around their contract-cancel fee. Just start harshing them if you don't like it, and they'll cancel it for you. Better yet, when you do subscribe to their service, issue a signing statement that says that if THEY cancel YOUR service, you are entitled to a contract-cancel fee.
I don't use ATT, nor will I ever. Let those bastards "suck on this"!! Censorship is a very dangerous thing-- indeed. (sadly, it looks to be a world trend more and more.) Time to be a hermit in the wilderness (for me).
So now I have to be aware of their f'n subsidiaries too?
It's probably cat litter or some other obscure divestment.
verizon went after a lefty group, right? so what's to stop them and AT&T from terminating the first amendment by decree. booschaineyCorp will never use the justice department to enforce citizens' rights.
It is so nice not to be a customer of either of those inaugust organizations and therefore to be able to call them humming hives of douchebags. This opinion is based solely on the above information regarding their terms of service but it is really all I need to know about them.
Livin' in a AmeriKa............
Every ISP, telephone company, cable company and even DSL in the nation uses AT$T WorldNet-SBC Global at some point or another for every form of communication you can think of. In this country, you might as well say they ARE the internet. What better way to monitor, control and restrict the flow of information. In a few more years the people of our country will be so blind and gagged it won't be remembered how it got there. The Constitution and the rights it guarantees will, using the words of Alberto Gonzales, truly be just a 'quaint' little document. With the REAL ID law going into effect next year, traveling within our own borders will be restricted also. They compliment each other quite well, don't you think? Ladies and Gentleman, the U.S.A is being turned into the 'new and improved' Soviet Union. That is the kind of country our children will be growing up in. But it's all for own good.......right?
This is what our corporate overlords deign as important for now and wish us to consume
http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/01/spears.federline/index.html
All discussion concerning anything else is prohibited.
END TRANSMISSION
BTW, once the internets go down its time to bring back short-wave radio as a means of dissent.
Welcome to the New World Order: Of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations.... Hopefully it won't take a "great Civil War" to free us.
Great quote from Hon. William O. Douglas.
The problem is that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is protection from government actions, not private.
Since the corporations are being handed the keys to the kingdom there is no overt set of protections.
Perhaps this is why the Rethuglicans want to outsource everything: to put it outside the Constitution.
...
Weaseldog @ 22:
Until you're in a car accident on the freeway, which was what convinced me to get a cell phone.
Dimples @ 35:
I'm new here.
What topics are prohibited from discussion on this site? And why?
Site Monitor: We ask that you keep your comments on topic and civil towards others. Hate speech and advocating violence are not allowed. We do not allow the discussion of 9/11 alternative theories, because it tends to invade all threads, take them off topic and cause huge flame wars.
Wasn't there a time not so long ago when the customer was King?
What ever happened to that sovereignty? Now the company believes it has the sovereign right to dictate to you rather than the other way round.
Imagine if they didn't like your zip code or your choice in furniture.
The Republican wave that started with Reagan is continuing and corporatism is the new religion. And the little guy is the water boy.
Lessee, the only thing that comes to mind is: Go Fuck yourself, AT&T...just to borrow a little eloquence from Dick Cheney.
Thankfully Gonzales’ is Gonezo.
He urged the Federal Communications Commission to oppose Net Neutrality.
If the american people start seeing censorship or the suspending of service from any company..
word will travel all across the country.
...any company involved. Will be the looser.
Since the Bush Admin and Justice Department
started the Hit Job Against an Open Internet.
heres a list So far...
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/
NATIONALIZE AT&T AND ALL THE OTHER "COMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES.
THEY ARE UN-AMERICAN, MONOPOLY-STALINIST LOVING COMMIES!
!
First, I suspect that no one could do as much damage to AT&T, et al., as they've just done to themselves with this unAmerican dictate;
Second, who are "its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries"? I'm guessing the list is really long, even if they don't include the Whitewash House on it.
Hey AT&T, Go fuck yourself. If you can't stand the heat, don't offer the service, you greedy dribbling old bastards. Fuck OFF. I hope sites using you for their bandwidth LEAVE IN DROVES.
I discontinued your service as soon as I was able. And if I had to, I'd use tin cans on a string before I'd use your service again.
Yoohoo @ 58:
Uh-I think you'll find that AT&T as is far away from Stalinist-Loving Commies as a company can be. Nationalising companies is much closer to the Commie philosophy than the AT&T monopoly model is...
Udon Nomee @ 26:
LMAO!
cc @ 53:
Then get a pre-paid phone. They're great for the just-in-case situations. Plus most plans won't burn a whole in your wallet. Now back to AT&T...
I'm so glad that I have nothing to do with the Bush-loving, information-sharing, boot-licking morons at AT&T. I don't have their crappy cell service or their crappy internet (thanks Cable)
... which is why sites like this one need ssl, so that without cooperation of the site, the ISP can't analyze what is being blogged with a packet sniffer. Everything now needs to be encrypted.
Thanks. I was just considering getting a Direct TV Package from AT&T. That's no longer under cosideration. As far as our AT&T cell phones go, we'll pick out a new service in the next day or two.
This is going to hit people where they live.
Don't get me wrong... I think the TOS is wrong headed and sends a very unfriendly message to the consumer, but how many people has AT&T terminated using their fancy new rule in their ever changing game of "Calvin Ball"? I'm an AT&T customer on three counts: Home, DSL, & Cellular, and generally I have no complaints. Even if I did, somehow I doubt that posting a rant to my blog is going to create enough of a stir that AT&T would even bother to carry out their threat.
Of course if you want to play musical chairs with you communications, go right ahead. I'm going to sit tight for a while and see if they actually do anything with their posturing before I decide to worry and moan.
Free speech has officially been banned.
If the worthless Democrats in Congress want to do something to show they still believe in the Constitution, they will put an end to this ASAP.
Where are all the idiotic Libertarians? They ought to be tickled pink about this. After all, this is just the free market at work, doing what the free market does when left unchecked by government.
Smack_dab @ 69:
Surely their God, Ron Paul, has a solution...
I'm all for a class action lawsuit. Can somebody from any civil liberties group take on this.
So this means we can't say mean things about the iphone?
I welcome our corporate overlords.
@ 69
"Where are all the idiotic Libertarians? They ought to be tickled pink about this. After all, this is just the free market at work, doing what the free market does when left unchecked by government."
But don't you see, another company will come along that will allow you to talk smack about them, and you can choose them. Nevermind that this puts the consumer into the position where they have to make choices about which company is least egregious on different levels - who cares!. So, if company A doesn't use slave labor but is environmentally safe, and company B pours dioxin into the local lake but pays fair wages, you can decide which you care about more.
That's the beauty of having a completely unfettered market! Yay!
cancelling my a t and t tommorow siegh hell
One more reason why i hate AT&T!
Hi guys,
No time to read the comments right now so pardon me if I'm duplicating stuff.
I just signed back on with ATT for my business landline. 3 nightmare experiences in as many months, including false billings, slamming, you name it. I will cancel my account asap with this news.
Second, Skype is looking more and more attractive. For about $60 PER YEAR, I have a local line that is always good at my house, and with the right phone, I can take the service anywhere there is Wi-fi.
Look into it. The telecom industry is very vulnerable right now and we as a people can cripple it with a little simultaneous cooperation.
“Where are all the idiotic Libertarians? They ought to be tickled pink about this. After all, this is just the free market at work, doing what the free market does when left unchecked by government.”
I think both the cable and telco industries were heavily regulated, and protected from competition - hardly a free market. With the move by the government to give to the telco's carte blanche the "last mile" of copper built during the monopoly era, high hurdles to any new competition have been erected. So, we're stuck with this cable/telco duopoly where the goal now is to replace the current net neutrality with something resembling the broadcast industry so that corporate interests have an increasing control over mass communications. And in the meantime, many internet subscribers are stuck with the requirement of an unwanted purchase (television, telephone) in order to not get price gouged on internet service.
Wow that is pretty arrogant of AT&T...
Too bad people aren't free to just, you know.....choose a different service provider..
Oh wait! We are!!
So what's the issue? Don't use their services.
This type of activity is typical of AT&T and the reason I never use any of their services,, ever. I just cancelled Cingular after they were switched to AT&T. Moved to Vonage after AT&T took over SBC. None of my money will go to them.
The attacks here on AT&T are warranted.
America is devoted to supporting corporations in order to grow the economy in order to manage the national debt.
The problem, I submit, isn't simply AT&T. It's the whole deal.
LeeBurtArrianne @ 43:
LeeBurtArianne, you're genius! I've been cursing AT&T for years - their billing people are sleazeballs (with a few notable exceptions). I keep getting different charges on my bill and spend at least an hour each month tracking them down. I always win, but enough is enough. I'm checking out Charter.
Milo
Hopefully ATT will start cutting off people's internet service for speaking ill of ATT. The more people get cut, the louder the roar of disapproval will be. Once more people realize that it's not just people they don't like whose rights are getting trampled, that truly nobody is safe, not even themselves, they won't stand for it.
To put it in a way that Republicans can understand: It's OK if the scary raghead down the block gets his Internet cut off for visiting, say, Arabic language news sites or something - but dammit, if I can't complain about AT&T's lousy service on the messageboards, mark my words, heads will roll. You can't treat me like this, I'm white! My rights are the ones that actually count!
I'm tired of this corporatism. These companies use the bill of rights as toilet paper
The Libertarian Party and its dogmatic pro-business followers are going to love this. After all, according to them, only government can censor, not private industry.
The irony of those words is no doubt becoming apparent to those that wrote them.
steve @ 74:
Uh yeah, and the moon is made of green cheese.
The Libertarian Party and its dogmatic pro-business followers are going to love this. After all, according to them, only government can censor, not private industry.
I should stop reading these threads backwards.
Seriously tho, ALL DSL IS NOT THE SAME!
If you are in area that has AT&T for your local telco, you are NOT necessarily limited to AT&T for dsl service. Any number of dsl providers may available to you, at a wider variety of speeds, prices, and payment options, than offered by AT&T, and you also will probably have a choice of the AT&T network or the COVAD network for your Internet access.
Particularly if AT&T has told you that you are too far from the telco C.O. (Central Office) to get dsl service, often other providers are willing/able to provide dsl service beyond the limitations of your local telco.
As a rule, dsl from the telcos is not the best deal around. Even large companies like EarthLink tend to suck major ass, bigtime (is that redundant...?). Smaller companies provide faster speeds at lower prices and with better terms and service packages.
And if you are using AOL, you should be ashamed. However, those of us with actual Internet access would like to congratulate you on having won that free Apple iPhone, Apple iPod, and iPod Nano. Again.
AOL is to Internet access, what Sonny and Cher was to Rock and Roll.
As a rule, if one company can get away with this, the rest will follow suit. And BTW, in most areas, you can't choose your service provider.
I have exactly one "choice" for my cable service.
Smack_dab @ 69:
Well... unless they're hypocrites, I would hope they are changing service away from ATT as we speak. I doubt it though, as most "libertarians" I meet these days are actually Mussalini corporatists, and ATT/Cingular has always been big into business contracts for cell service. You know, kinda like those "small government" conservatives that have bloated our government into record debt? It's almost easier to define people by the exact opposite of what they claim to be these days...
Bud @ 50:
You mean, like this? It seems similar in my mind, anyway.
Snowball @ 91:
AT&T doesn't provide cable service. The topic is AT&T internet access, which is dsl.
Udon Nomee @ 93:
Irrelevant, as one telecom goes, so shall the others.
If you don't think this won't set a trend for all internet providers, you a seriously naive.
My Verizon account was cancelled without notice within weeks of getting it for apparent "band width abuse," it took 4 months to get my deposit, and all I had done was watch some 911 type vids at youtube and update my Mac with some software downloads.
They are pushing us for a nexus or revolutionary change in our commerce habits and choices. A million people canceling their cable might wake them up as to who has the money they steal.
Bad keyboard!