AT&T Will Suspend Accounts of Detractors
By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews
October 1, 2007, 4:26 PM
Telecommunications company AT&T updated its terms of service for its DSL customers recently with an interesting addition: the company will now suspend the accounts of those who talk badly of it. The new line reads that service may be suspended if a customer’s comments “tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.”
Customers may find the move somewhat troubling, especially considering the telecom’s involvement in the warrantless wiretapping scandal that rocked the Bush adminstration in 2005. While the company tried to play down its involvement, it also altered its privacy policy to try to claim ownership over the personal information that customers provide to it. AT&T had no immediate comment on the change to its policies.
Freedom to speech and freedom to express oneself is really kind a dead. Long live democracy in a neo fascist regime. Were corporations run your life? No need to think for one’s self when big brother will do it for you…
Remember when Telus was blocking a bunch of anti-Telus sites? We were blocked too.
[quote]Telus, Canada’s second largest telco provider, recently blocked
subscriber access to a site supportive of its union. The NY Times has
additional coverage today at
I also cover the story in my weekly column (posted below). I argue that
Telus violated the basic ISP rule that providers transport bits of data
without discrimination, preference, or regard for content.
The company argued that its subscriber contract granted it the right to
block content. While that may be true for its roughly one million
retail subscribers, the blockage occurred at the Internet backbone
level, thereby blocking access for other ISPs (and their customers) that
use Telus as their provider. For example, Prince Rupert, a small city on
the northwest coast of British Columbia, has established a community ISP
to provide its citizens with municipally supported Internet access.
Since their connectivity is provided by Telus, last week the entire
community found itself unable to access the website in question.[/quote]
Michael Geist wrote about it in a bunch of his columns: