truth in advertising for ISPs

[John Chambers]

Michael Tiernan wrote:
| I'm reminded of this situation because if we did pursue the argument
| that comcast isn't an "ISP" they could beat the rap by changing their
| designation to "IAP" (Internet Access Provider) which would derail any
| attempts we could make in beating their random acts of rule making.

Ah, but they'd still be claiming to provide "Internet". If that means
anything  at  all,  it  should mean that they provide the data packet
capabilities defined in the RFCs.  They might also  provide  services
like SMTP, NNTP, etc, which are defined in RFCs. But providing things
like port blocking and killing of  connections  via  faked  "goodbye"
packets isn't providing "Internet" anything; it's preventing Internet
access.  This should be considered proof of deceptive  labelling  and
consumer fraud.

| I'd still like to be able to "choose" who I plug into from home but I
| don't have any choices. (Without remortgaging the house.)

There's an old publisher's saying that Freedom of the  Press  belongs
to him who owns and controls a printing press. Similarly, Free Speech
belongs to whoever controls the means of communication.  If you and I
want  to exchange data, and the ISP can legally block our attempts at
communication, we don't havee free speech at all; we have controlled,
censored and monitored speech.

It was decided many decades ago that the phone companies  don't  have
the  right  to monitor, record, or edit phone conversations without a
court warrant.  (Not that they don't do it anyway,  of  course.   ;-)
Maybe eventually this will be extended to Internet communication. But
we do seem to have a problem that, when a computer gets  involved  in
something,  all  legal  precedent  is  thrown  out  and  we  have  to
reestablish all the laws from scratch.


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