The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/564540.html

Posted on Sat, Apr. 05, 2008
Inside your ISP's fine print
By PETER SVENSSONThe Associated Press
AP/LAUREN VICTORIA BURKE

NEW YORK -- What's scary, funny and boring at the same time? It could be a bad horror movie. Or it could be the fine print on your Internet service provider's contract.

Those documents you agree to -- usually without reading -- ostensibly allow your ISP to watch how you use the Internet, read your e-mail or keep you from visiting sites it deems inappropriate.

The Associated Press reviewed the "Acceptable Use Policies" and "Terms of Service" of the nation's 10 largest ISPs -- in all, 117 pages of contracts that leave few rights for subscribers.

"The network is asserting almost complete control of the users' ability to use their network as a gateway to the Internet," said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, a Washington-based consumer-advocacy group. "They become gatekeepers rather than gateways."

But the provisions are rarely enforced, except against obvious miscreants like spammers. Consumer outrage would have been the likely result if AT&T Inc. took advantage of its stated right to block any activity that causes the company "to be viewed unfavorably by others."

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said this clause was a "piece of boilerplate that is passed around the corporate lawyers like a Christmas fruitcake.

"The idea that they would ever invoke it and point to it is nuts, especially since their terms of service already say they can cut you off for any reason and give you a refund for the balance of the month."

AT&T removed the "unfavorably by others" wording in February after The Associated Press asked about the reason behind it.

The courts give extra scrutiny to this sort of contract, where the subscriber is considered to agree by signing up for service rather than by active negotiation, Zittrain said.

Any ambiguity is usually resolved in favor of the consumer rather than the company.

Yet the main purpose of ISP contracts isn't to circumscribe the service for all subscribers but to provide legal cover for the company if it cuts off a user who's abusing the system.

"There really should be an onus on the regulators to see this kind of thing is done correctly," said Bob Williams, who deals with telecom and media issues at Consumers Union.

Other common clauses:

ISPs can read your e-mail

Practically all ISPs reserve the right to read your e-mails and look at the sites you visit, without a wiretap order. This reflects the open nature of the Internet -- for privacy purposes, e-mails are more like postcards than letters. It's also prompted by the ISPs' need to identify and stop subscribers who send spam e-mails.

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."

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.

Funny print

From the fine-print contracts of Internet providers:

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.

Verizon Communications 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.

According to its terms of service contract, Verizon doesn't back up your hard drive.

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

Source: The Associated Press