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Stupid Terms of Service

September 30, 2007 0:23:21.528

Doc Searls highlights the rather onerous terms of service from AT&T (Verizon seems to have similar ones):

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. Termination or suspension by AT&T of Service also constitutes termination or suspension (as applicable) of your license to use any Software. AT&T may also terminate or suspend your Service if you provide false or inaccurate information that is required for the provision of Service or is necessary to allow AT&T to bill you for Service.

I added the highlighting - to point out the over-broadness. What that says is amazing - if you have AT&T as an ISP, and you then say anything negative about them in an email, a blog post, a forum comment, (etc) - they can cut off your service. Someone should call their PR department and ask a few pointed questions.

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Comments

Hmmm...

[Hmmm...] September 30, 2007 4:33:20.756

What was it that you used to say about freedom of speech?

Freedom of Speech

[ James Robertson] September 30, 2007 10:37:14.706

Comment by James Robertson

This isn't actually a rights issue, because it's not a government entity censoring you. We accept various levels of corporate censorship in contractual terms all the time - Non Disclosure Agreements, implicit agreements to not slander the company we work for, etc. I highlighted this one because I think it bounces back and makes AT&T look worse.

Hmmm...

[Hmmm...] September 30, 2007 17:24:54.411

Actual, meaningful competition between ISPs would make this less of a problem.

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