Via Journerdism, BoingBoing, and Slashdot, in that order, comes this excerpt from AT&T Terms of Service on a bellsouth site:
“5.1 Suspension/Termination. Your Service may be suspended or terminated if your payment is past due and such condition continues un-remedied for thirty (30) days. In addition, 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.”
Not very subtle.
Ryan Sholin 
Comments
2 responses to “The first rule about AT&T services”
Seeing as how BellSouth has almost a monopoly on high-speed Internet access in my neighborhood (my only other option is Cox Cable), doesn’t this constitute a chilling effect on my free speech rights as a U.S. citizen? Isn’t this policy in violation of the First Amendment? I guess I cannot write this question on my own blog — if I did, BellSouth might cancel my Internet service. (Is this America, or am I living in Soviet Russia? Or … Burma?)
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I have had a lot of bad experiences with AT&T, and Comcast, the only two choices in my area for high-speed Internet in my area. Since they know they have near monopolies, they do not care about customer service. It would be really nice to have more choice and competition.
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