I am glad I didn't sign up for AT and T's service at home. Hopefully Verizon won't be as cruel as them. If anyone wants to speak freely on the Internets (about their carrier) they reserve the right to ban people from logging on. I kid you not.
From Scholars and Rogues:
Slashdot broke the news on Saturday that ATT’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:
ATT 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 ATT, 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 ATT 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 ATT 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 ATT ISP while writing said complaint? What if I did so while using my laptop at a Wi-Fi hotspot? The mind boggles.
It isn't boggling, only the sound of increasing corporate power in our country. It isn't the government we need to be afraid of (neo-cons withstanding), the corporations have far too much influence in the halls of Congress and subsequently in society.
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