Verizon emailed me on the 29th letting me know about their new terms of service for my DSL connection. The new terms go into effect on Tuesday, March the 4th. They can be found at http://www2.verizon.net/policies.
I hope no one wants to contribute to any adult sections of the Internet, you can’t do that according to sections 2(a) “Verizon reserves the right to deny Service to you, or immediately to terminate your Service for material breach, if your use of the Service or your use of an alias or the aliases of additional users on your account, whether explicitly or implicitly, and in the sole discretion of Verizon: (a) is … pornographic, … or of a sexually explicit or graphic nature;” and 3(b) “You may NOT use the Service as follows: … (b) to post or transmit information or communications that, whether explicitly stated, implied, or suggested through use of symbols, are … pornographic, … or of a sexually explicit or graphic nature;.” That seems to be too broad, as sexually explicit talk could include medical concerns.
And section 6 says “[y]ou agree that your name, UserID, and other identifying information may be placed in our user directory.” What user directory? Is that open to the public? Or just the internal one that Verizon maintains of their customers? It seems that they wouldn’t need to put in their Acceptable Use Policy that Verizon is keeping a copy of their customer’s information.
Section 7 seems to let Verizon share your info and surfing habits if they even suspect you of doing anything wrong. “Verizon reserves the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrong. Such cooperation may include, but not be limited to, provision of account or user information or email as well as monitoring of the Verizon network.” It also seems to say that Verizon won’t stand up for your rights, but will instead simply roll over for any complaints about one of their customers.
I realizethat the terms of any ISP are more to cover their butt than to be effective, and that 99% of their customers won’t care what is in these agreements. But they still give a lot of power to the company, and none to their customer.
Michael Clark,
In addition to the TOS changes by Verizon, other issues are popping up since the “power outage” in Florida this last week.
Servicing multiple residential and small business pcs and home/sm. bus. networks this last week, a common denominator has been noted. Wireless access points, wireless routers purchased and installed by the customer (rather than Verizon or BrightHouse supplied) have been dropping out and glitching up like proverbial flies. Setting resets to workgroup name and network type to OS default – (residential or business….such as Vista Business OS reverting to “this computer is used for connection to other business computers rather than ‘this computer is for home use’), group policy config. non-owner changes noted are extremely restrictive and are way too common a complaint to be coincidence. Most especially affected are Vista OS pre-installed pcs, XP pcs with the auto-update set on (most likely the new SP3). Other common threads are large number (>4 port ethernet hubs), multiple hub installations (master hub with sub-hubs….), more than 2 pcs hub-connected/wireless connected through a common DSL or FIOS modem, non-Verizon browsers (Firefox, Netscape, et.al) and the usual evil eye cast upon those of us who at times use a Linux OS. Interesting times we are living in. And let’s not forget Vista SP1 is due to hit any day now.
Something is coming. I highly advise all your readers to not assume they are safe. A simple question to be asked should be directed to those you know who do “push the limits” versus the users you know have Verizon accounts who do not set any alarms a-clanging in V-Server/It-Land…. if they received the same email you and I (and several of my best friend) received today/this morning…or if they did not.
Thank you for your comments and concerns as I read on this site/URL: http://www.planetmike.com/2008/03/01/verizons-new-terms-of-service/
RG
That is by far the most explicit I’ve ever heard off. I’m not even sure what’s in my TOC. It seems like madness that an ISP is detailing like that for what is a moral argument and not for something like file sharing?
I figured I’d follow-up to my earlier date comments. And I tell you all, I really dislike feeling like some sort of wild-eyed conspiracy theorist; but, I repeat what I said in the earlier post – something is up in Verizon-world.
I was able to contact Verizon account support and administration the day before the new terms of service were put into force. Explaining that I ‘experiment’ with multiple pcs, operating systems, VOIP and other massive bandwidth usage downloads and purposes. I admitted freely that my estimated download total since apx. Thanksgiving 2007 was somewhere around 10+Tb or more. In addition, using a 24 port ethernet hub, I’ve the capability of simultaneously having up to 14 different wired pcs/devices and 3 wireless devices online at any given time with the current hardware I have up and ready to use.
The initial tech/agent I spoke with at first told me that I was indeed in violation for multiple reasons. Breaking the unspoken but somewhere published 3 pc limit per household, the 4-5Gb per day, 40Gb per week limit, the usage of a non-Verizon provided VOIP service and the connection of a residential server/storage system to my connection.
My simple response was that when I signed on – pre-Verizon days…. back when there was NO Verizon; rather, GTE – and to date….I was told I had unlimited access (says so right on every month’s bill!). Unlimited by definition to my understanding meant of all things – unlimited. NO limits to the amount of time my connection was active, was engaged in data downloads, number of computers, of whatever use I decided to put my connection to.
To sum up, it took a logging of my account to the effect that I was ‘permitted’ to continue as I had been. All of the above approved – yep, all of it. Have the reference number on file just in case. The poor agent I originally dealt with had to call in his supervisor to do this.
Odd but true, my connection problems almost immediately cleared up. Suddenly, my access points began functioning again, my VOIP system became stable again and with a clearer quality of signal. Even my VRML forays a bit speedier.
Equally odd, I’ve serviced no less than 15 different household systems this last week – all with the same basic problem. Loss of connection – both DSL and FIOS. Actiontec FIOS modems especially affected. I must reiterate that something is going on. These folks are not ‘experimenters’ like myself. They are retirees, older couples, families with what I consider a minimal internet usage/presence. All are being faced with odd modem failures – loss of connection – setting changes that they’d have not the foggiest idea of how to locate much less change.
Any idea from the masses what’s up?