ISPs Hog Rights in Fine Print

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[Kosh GTO]

NEW YORK (AP) -- In their subscriber contracts, some Internet providers explicitly absolve themselves of obligations that, it seems, no one would imagine they had in the first place.

For instance, Verizon Communications Inc. makes broadband subscribers agree that the company assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of things they may read on the Internet, or receive in e-mails. So don't complain to the company if that Wikipedia entry on wombats misstates their gestational period.

"Sometimes people think that everything they see online comes from their ISP or is somehow vetted and endorsed by the ISP," said Verizon spokeswoman Bobbi Henson.

Until March 3, Verizon also made subscribers agree that it does not own, operate or manage the Internet. That provision has now been eliminated because it's "generally well understood by most people" that Verizon does not own the Internet, while that may not have been the case in the early days of broadband, Henson said.

Another thing Verizon doesn't do for you, according to the Terms of Service: back up your hard drive.

Other ISPs try to ban nefarious practices like spamming and fraud with clauses so broad that it applies to a lot of legitimate activities.

Charter Communications, a cable company, forbids customers from altering or removing information from e-mail message headers, which sounds like they don't want you to change the subject line of an e-mail before forwarding it. Charter spokeswoman Anita Lamont said the company does not consider the subject line to be part of the header, and the provision is there to prevent people from forging headers to make it appear as if a message is coming from someone else.

AT&T Inc. prohibits users from posting to forums messages that could be expected to provoke complaints. Given that forums can be very touchy places, many messages could fall under this provision.

Windstream Communications bans "Satan" from its network, which sounds weird until you realize that it's referring to hacker software: System Administration Tool for Analyzing Networks, or SATAN.  

[Fcomic]

system admins ussually worship satin at home...so.........why not worship satin at work?

[Evil Q]

hmm .. what's the world come to if people can't worship satan freely

[Kosh GTO]

ISPs can block you from Web sites

Or at least they would like to think so. In a clause typical of ISPs, Comcast reserves the right to block or remove traffic it deems "inappropriate, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful."

The ISP sees itself as the sole judge of whether something is appropriate.

Broad enforcement of this kind of clause for business purposes other than protecting users is likely to draw attention from regulators like the FCC, as is happening in the Comcast file-sharing case.



ISPs can shut you down for using the connection too much

For cable ISPs, up to 500 households may be sharing the capacity on a single line, and a few traffic hogs can slow the whole neighborhood down. But rather than saying publicly how much traffic is too much, some cable companies keep their caps secret, and simply warn offenders individually. If that doesn't work, they're kicked off.

It's difficult to reach these secret bandwidth caps unless users are downloading large amounts of high-quality video from the Internet, but the advent of high-definition Internet video set-top boxes like the Apple TV and the Vudu could make it more common.

Oddly, some ISPs, like Cox, say it's the responsibility of subscribers to ensure that they don't hog the traffic of other subscribers, a determination that's impossible for a home broadband user. Cox, however, does make the monthly download and upload limits public on its Web site.

Time Warner Cable Inc. has said it will test putting public caps on how much new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, can download per month, and charge them more if they go over.





Hellz's no we won't put up with this.GTO

[Kosh GTO]

ISPs can block you from Web sites

Or at least they would like to think so. In a clause typical of ISPs, Comcast reserves the right to block or remove traffic it deems "inappropriate, regardless of whether this material or its dissemination is unlawful."

The ISP sees itself as the sole judge of whether something is appropriate.

Broad enforcement of this kind of clause for business purposes other than protecting users is likely to draw attention from regulators like the FCC, as is happening in the Comcast file-sharing case.



ISPs can shut you down for using the connection too much

For cable ISPs, up to 500 households may be sharing the capacity on a single line, and a few traffic hogs can slow the whole neighborhood down. But rather than saying publicly how much traffic is too much, some cable companies keep their caps secret, and simply warn offenders individually. If that doesn't work, they're kicked off.

It's difficult to reach these secret bandwidth caps unless users are downloading large amounts of high-quality video from the Internet, but the advent of high-definition Internet video set-top boxes like the Apple TV and the Vudu could make it more common.

Oddly, some ISPs, like Cox, say it's the responsibility of subscribers to ensure that they don't hog the traffic of other subscribers, a determination that's impossible for a home broadband user. Cox, however, does make the monthly download and upload limits public on its Web site.

Time Warner Cable Inc. has said it will test putting public caps on how much new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, can download per month, and charge them more if they go over.





Hellz's no we won't put up with this.GTO

[Valkyrie]

hmmm.....I think I liked the SATAN worship part of this thread better.  Man, ISP's are always looking for ways to screw ya aren't they?  So far I haven't had any issues, but I'm not on a cable feed.  That & I don't download huge files.  But this really pisses me off.

[Fcomic]

ISPs can shut you down for using the connection too much

For cable ISPs, up to 500 households may be sharing the capacity on a single line, and a few traffic hogs can slow the whole neighborhood down. But rather than saying publicly how much traffic is too much, some cable companies keep their caps secret, and simply warn offenders individually. If that doesn't work, they're kicked off.

It's difficult to reach these secret bandwidth caps unless users are downloading large amounts of high-quality video from the Internet, but the advent of high-definition Internet video set-top boxes like the Apple TV and the Vudu could make it more common.

Oddly, some ISPs, like Cox, say it's the responsibility of subscribers to ensure that they don't hog the traffic of other subscribers, a determination that's impossible for a home broadband user. Cox, however, does make the monthly download and upload limits public on its Web site.

Time Warner Cable Inc. has said it will test putting public caps on how much new subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, can download per month, and charge them more if they go over.





Hellz's no we won't put up with this.GTO

well ive obviously downloaded and uploaded a few thousand gigs more than the average user and im still around, and only in the last month have i started to get throttled between 6pm and midnight.

[Valkyrie]

It's irritating as hell to get throttled at all I imagine.  How can you tell?  Just by looking at your speeds or have they sent you info?

[Fcomic]

It's irritating as hell to get throttled at all I imagine.  How can you tell?  Just by looking at your speeds or have they sent you info?

just looking at speeds.
ussually i can download at over 900kbs, right now its about 150kbs, some nights its as bad as 25kbs download....

and omg random smiley?
:valmilf:

[Valkyrie]

LOL  that's Q's creation...and I must admit, one of my favs...along with this:  & this:

My speed tops out at about 125 so I don't imagine I'll ever have to worry about throttling.

[Fcomic]

im not used to anything lower than 500kbs... i have been getting max speed on torrents for almost 2 years at this point.

when i had dial up i had all of 3 kbs to download with. and last week i had the same 3kbs to download with... i couldnt believe how long it too to load a webpage, i went and played my psp for a few hours till the internet came back in its full 1 second page load glory.

[Neoandrew1]

lmao if I get 250kbs Im a very happy chappy but Im normally stuck on about half that lol

[Valkyrie]

Dial up isn't that distant a memory.  Hell, my hubby is stuck on it these days as our router is misbehaving & isn't even in the loop right now.  Oh well, better him than me (he agrees fortunately) and it's his job to get it fixed (because if it was mine, the thing would be thrown threw the window...while it's still closed).