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CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

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Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#211

Post by olyjohn »

pwg wrote: post #4

And here we see the disconnect between what politicians say, and what they write into law. The bill's sponsor's response to the blog authors query: SB134 did not require that ...They were only required to notify customers of options via email or with an invoice. And here is the text of the statute that was written: (ii) A service provider may provide the notice described in Subsection (2)(b)(i): (A) by electronic com…

Regardless of how the law was written, they didn't HAVE to take all the leeway that was given to them. Just because a company can do something, doesn't mean that they should. Just because it's not illegal, doesn't mean that it's okay. They found an opportunity to get people used to this sort of tactic, and they took advantage of it. Please don't take the blame off of CenturyLink.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#212

Post by jasonjayr »

walrus01 wrote: post #184
markovbot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's horrible, did you call them up and ask why their DNS servers are fraudulently lying about IP addresses of certain high traffic domains?

Beyond a certain size of ISP (several tens of thousands of customers or more), there is literally no point in wasting your time or the phone representative's time. They'll have no clue what you're talking about and little or no power to escalate you to the people responsible for their internal network engineering decisions.

The right way, probably, is to educate folks, and nitpick w/ the sales guys. And call them out on the service's non-features, and/or if they lie. Once you're a customer, the support folks don't care, but the Sales folks are thirsty to close the sale.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#213

Post by gnopgnip »

otakucode wrote: post #122
xahrepap wrote: post #94

CenturyLink is totally shady. My wife just yesterday spent a significant amount of time fixing our phone bill. She decided a couple months ago to upgrade to a "fixed" bill plan (apparently they've been raising our prices $10/mo every year for the last few years). This plan price won't change until we change the plan. It's bundled with their internet though, but my wife told them to not send the modem because we weren…

An important bit of law to always keep in mind, as companies bank on consumers being ignorant of it: If a company mails something to your home that you did not expressly order - it's yours. End of story. They cannot request that you send it back, they can not charge you for it. It's yours. This includes if you ordered product A and they sent you product B by mistake. Legally speaking, in that situation you were sent…

You are misconstruing what the laws on unordered merchandise mean. If you have a business relationship with a company, and they send you something mistakenly, they can bill you if you do not send it back. You will not win a lawsuit for fraud or similar unless you have no business relationship, or the company refuses to send you a return mailing label.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#214

Post by eridius »

dangrossman wrote: post #194
eridius wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they meant to send it to someone else but put your address on it, that's an accident. Which is to say, if the package has your address on it but someone else's name, you can't keep it (in fact, if it's delivered by the USPS then I believe even just opening it is a crime as it's someone else's mail). If they intended for you to receive it but believed you were expecting it (and understood that you'd have to pay for…

The law is not determined by what you find reasonable, but by what the legislation says. See: 39 U.S. Code § 3009 - Mailing of unordered merchandise https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/3009 If you're mailed merchandise that you did not expressly request or consent to, it becomes your property to do with as you will, and you cannot be billed for it. There are no exceptions for accidents.

What I "find reasonable" only applied to the sentence that contained it. Receiving accidental packages has nothing to do with "reasonable".

If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package. That's my core point.

If you receive a package that is intended for you, but it was a bona fide mistake on the company's part, you'd have to ask a lawyer as to whether that counts as "unordered merchandise" or not. I certainly wouldn't simply assume it is.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#215

Post by gmjosack »

xahrepap wrote: post #94

CenturyLink is totally shady. My wife just yesterday spent a significant amount of time fixing our phone bill. She decided a couple months ago to upgrade to a "fixed" bill plan (apparently they've been raising our prices $10/mo every year for the last few years). This plan price won't change until we change the plan. It's bundled with their internet though, but my wife told them to not send the modem because we weren…

Some states require carriers to maintain service for 911 on inactive lines. You could check if this works in your area.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2009/05/update-abou...

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#216

Post by dragonwriter »

eridius wrote: post #214
dangrossman wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is not determined by what you find reasonable, but by what the legislation says. See: 39 U.S. Code § 3009 - Mailing of unordered merchandise https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/39/3009 If you're mailed merchandise that you did not expressly request or consent to, it becomes your property to do with as you will, and you cannot be billed for it. There are no exceptions for accidents.

What I "find reasonable" only applied to the sentence that contained it. Receiving accidental packages has nothing to do with "reasonable". If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package . That's my core point. If you receive a package that is intended for you, but it was a bona fide mistake on the company's part, you'd have to ask a lawyer as to w…

> If you receive a package that was not intended for you, that's an accident, and you are not entitled to that package. That's my core point.

If it was addressed to you, whether intended or not, the law expressly states it is yours; the relevant code section has no mental state precondition.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#217

Post by freeopinion »

JohnFen wrote: post #203
freeopinion wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, you need to substantiate your claim about early termination fees. Second, most of them do have other options for broadband and in fact use an alternative provider every day. Third, well organized boycotts commonly work well. Even a 10% drop in revenue really gets the attention.

"Second, most of them do have other options for broadband and in fact use an alternative provider every day." Are you sure? I don't know anything at all about the market in that part of Utah, but I do know that in almost every place I've lived, there has been exactly one broadband ISP available. If you don't want to use them, then you don't get broadband.

I am sure. I am very familiar with that specific market. I know exactly what it is like to compete with CenturyLink, Verizon, ATT.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#218

Post by enzanki_ars »

I don’t think CenturyLink thought through the implications of what they just pulled. I know that there are a significant number of people that use VoIP services like Vonage.

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night with a need to call 911, but your ISP purposely broke your internet just to sell you a “security offering.”

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#219

Post by bradenb »

Well this sucks. I have CenturyLink for residential gigabit fiber. Honestly, they've been a fantastic ISP for me. I also haven't received the notice and I'm one of those "SOL" customers that uses non-CenturyLink DNS. We'll see what happens. I'd be surprised if they didn't stop this immediately as soon as it blew up.

I have been noticing comments from people in my area on social media over the last month with the recurring theme "Is anyone else's CenturyLink down?" This must have been it.

Re: CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to

#220

Post by cookiecaper »

pwg wrote: post #47
dragonwriter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, the fault here lies with the politician. I disagree: the claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false. It's true that it is permitted by the state law (just as it would be permitted without any specific law on the topic at all), and even arguable that it is one means of complying with the law. (Though since the notification is not presented to some us…

> claim by CenturyLink that this particularly intrusive, access blocking method is mandated is simply false Agreed - also not the point I was making. > it's not any lawmaker’s fault that CenturyLink chose to implement pretty much the most user-hostile method imaginable Oh but it is the lawmaker's fault. It is the lawmaker's fault by writing a law that was so broadly worded as to allow Century Link to be able to perfo…

Consider if such a law was written in the late 80s when fax machines dominated. Suppose that the law specified "send by fax" instead of "electronic communication".
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