A sharp eyed ATT DSL subscriber noticed this little clause in his contract (Terms Of Service):
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...tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.
So 'conduct' that they 'believe tends to damage' their company can get you booted off any of their internet services. No legal proof of damages needed.
Would this very blog post constitute 'damaging the name/reputation' of ATT?

Interestingly, the arstechnica article brings out as an ISP, ATT enjoys legal protection from a user posting illegal content and from what their subscribers say and do online. As such, they are not compelled to police their network. Fine. But if they begin to regularly police content on their networks, will it become liable for content or speech posted using ATT? And if this takes place, will this policing of their network extend to other types of content/speech?
The clause seems poorly concieved at best and a deliberate draconian move at worst, but not entirely surprising from this company judging by what has been revealed over the last two years.
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1 comments:

phlezk said...

Saw this. Emailed it to some people, one person replied back that the website where it links to the ToS may be fake... it's not ATT.com... hmm... weird.

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