..and in this edition of corporate censorship…
AT$T has decided to update it’s terms of service with some seriously ambiguous language. Quoth the corporation:
AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.
So, what does that mean, exactly? If I were a customer and I complained about their service on Consumerist.com, could they cancel my service? If I wrote something negative about the company on my blog while using their tubes, could they shut my off?
The good thing is, I am NOT an AT$T customer. I suspect, however, that if I write shit about Comcast, all bets are off, though.
Whatever happened to that whole free wifi idea? Killed by large corporations who make killings on ISP service?
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I’m not an AT&T or Comcast customer. They can both die.
Which ‘free wifi’ idea are you talking about? City-wide free wifi? I think I recall reading in one of my computer publications that people just aren’t using it. It’s not fast enough or not reliable enough. I’ll have to find the article again.
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:49 am
Find that article—I’d like to read it. I believe that it is tied to the peer to peer wifi, which is somewhat dangerous.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Ok here it is : http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/09/muni_wifi
The basic gist of the article: “It’s a harsh dose of reality that juxtaposes the giddy enthusiasm for ubiquitous Wi-Fi that cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia, Houston and many others displayed only a few years ago. In part, that enthusiasm was based on a handful of assumptions. The first was that advertising could support citywide connectivity, enabling the services to be free or low-cost. Many proponents also argued that residents would actually want to use the free networks. Both assumptions were mistaken.”