New York State has given Verizon Wireless a million new reasons to understand that the word "unlimited" when used in advertising should mean what it means elsewhere in polite society.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that his office had beaten a $1 million "agreement" out of Verizon Wireless that will see the carrier compensate 13,000 customers it had summarily disconnected from their "unlimited" plans because they had taken the word to mean what it means.
From a statement issued by Cuomo's office:
The settlement follows a nine-month investigation into the marketing of NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess plans for wireless access to the internet for laptop computer users. Attorney General's investigation found that Verizon Wireless prominently marketed these plans as "Unlimited," without disclosing that common usages such as downloading movies or playing games online were prohibited. The company also cut off heavy internet users for exceeding an undisclosed cap of usage per month. As a result, customers misled by the company's claims, enrolled in its Unlimited plans, only to have their accounts abruptly terminated for excessive use, leaving them without internet services and unable to obtain refunds.
A million bucks is essentially petty cash for a company this size - the public-relations beating will likely prove more costly - but the episode should nonetheless act as a deterrent for other carriers tempted to sprinkle their advertising with manure. At least that's the theory.
"This settlement sends a message to companies large and small answering the growing consumer demand for wireless services. When consumers are promised an ‘unlimited' service, they do not expect the promise to be broken by hidden limitations," said Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. "Consumers must be treated fairly and honestly. Delivering a product is simply not enough - the promises must be delivered as well."
As for Verizon's take on the matter? Well, it's priceless:
"We are pleased to have cooperated with the New York Attorney General and to have voluntarily reached this agreement," a company spokesman told Associated Press. "When this was brought to our attention, we understood that advertising for our NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess services could provide more clarity."
Corporate spokespeople earn good salaries to spout such nonsense, of course, but even by that standard we should take a moment to count up all the lies in this statement.
1. Verizon is pleased by this outcome. ... Bet they had a big office party.
2. The settlement was voluntary. ... Yes, in the time-honored way that criminals voluntarily confess after the cops show them the bloody glove (OK, this doesn't always work, but still ...).
3. Verizon only understood the problem after it was brought to their attention. ... He meant after it was brought to their attention 13,000 times and the subpoenas started to fly, so maybe I'm being harsh on that one.
4. And the real whopper: What we're talking about here is a lack of "clarity" in the advertising, nothing more. ... You'd think a multibillion-dollar company could afford a dictionary.
Here at Buzzblog we like to believe that we go out of our way to accept business-speak for what it is and to not immediately presume the worst about corporate intentions.
Such latitude, however, is not unlimited.
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Attorney General
It's Andrew Cuomo not Anthony
Thank-you
Fixed, thanks.
EVDO had the same issues
They were doing the same with their EVDO data service. The dishonesty of companies when it comes to their services, support of said services and lack of customer support is the reason that I have very limited service for both cable and wireless. I shouldn't forget that they charge so much for everything.
EVDO
I agree we have to pay a good amount of money for cable and wireless services and it is not the consumers fault when those industries over sale their actual network capacity, taking the money as profit instead of reinvesting it in new infrastructure.
I'm still waiting for my 17"
I'm still waiting for my 17" CRT that wasn't 17".
ok, why don't they just do this?
ok, so, the problem is that they have less bandwidth than they tell us, so when we use too much, they "overuse" their allocated bandwidth, because they buy bandwidth from the larger backbones as well.
So, the solution for them is simple, it goes like this.
1. don't persecute anyone for using too much bandwidth.
2. Anyone connecting to known sites which allow the downloading of "illegal" content, to have their connections monitored.
3. the monitoring of such connection will record the filenames of any files being downloaded, since that is the only illegal content that causes their immediate problem
4. if the filenames match something which they recognise, closer inspection is executed
5. if the content downloaded, is in fact, illegal, verified, etc. A legal letter is sent out, 3 strikes and you're out.
6. the recorded traffic is sent to the RIAA/MPAA
7. Your ass is grass, they have 100% of the information they need.
the moral of this story is thus. Don't push too hard, push hard enough to be free, but not hard enough to be so free, that you're also free to get sued as well.
I mean, considering the ONLY WAY to use GBytes of traffic a month, causing a problem, is to download REALLY LARGE FILES, 99% of those large files, happen to be movies and music.
HOWEVER, if you arent downloading illegal content, then you're in the clear, nobody bothers you, if you get a false positive, then surely a simple email would clear it up. As long as everyone plays fair and gives each other space, no problems.
Also, anyone downloading 50 iso's of linux at a time deserves to get sued anyway :D no no, I joke, I mean, if you are in fact JUST DOING THAT, then you'll never trip the system into action, the only way to get those nasty emails, is to visit isohunt.com and download "Transformers DVD Rip" or similar. I mean, what is wrong with people today? If you want to download dvd rips, use your neighbours wireless connection to do it, I mean, cmon, common sense :D :D
Don't flame me because I am saying something that we may dislike, discuss what I've said, did I really say something that was that bad? or that wrong? I can hear people screaming already, but if you happen to have any problem with this plan at all, I can only imagine you'd be one of the first to get sued. So you won't get any sympathy from me.
Right?
There are plenty of ways to download Gbytes of content...
All the major networks have their tv shows online now. ABC is doing HD streaming... That's 2 megabits per second, or about 0.9 gigabytes per hour. Do the math. How much TV does the average American watch? 3 hours per day? More than that... At 3 hours of tv per day, you will easily hit 100 Gigabytes per month, not including anything else you may have downloaded.
not illegal
Downloading gigabytes of data is not illegal.
I have a a 2gb flash card in my camera; I have multiples of these cards. Sometimes I need to upload all the content somewhere and download it again elsewhere.
Other times I generate gigabytes of data through analysis I do for my job. That's not even recreational, and I'd be sure to go over the [un]limit[ed] on that data which I move with a lot of frequency.
Looking for bandwidth in all the wrong places
Verizon's problem is they put their EVDO service on the same frequency as their voice services - 900mhz. So V capped bandwidth to prevent data users from interrupting voice customer usage. It's not WHAT you download, it's just HOW MUCH you download.
The Washington Post reported on this a year ago, and the reporter who was using V's data service wasn't downloading movies, just surfing the internet and communicating via email, and V cut them off.
The other EVDO provider had the sense to use a different, dedicated frequency, so they can afford to offer true unlimited bandwidth.
What if you're serving data
What if you're serving data backups?
What if you're running a website that happens to grow fairly rapidly?
What if Verizon decide that visiting www.comcast.com is against their liking also?
Why on earth should I pay for an "unlimited" service, that happens to be limited in any shape or form, even IF I were to download anything shady?
You're comments are frightening but my biggest fear is that they may be prophetic.
Will you enjoy the police state you're driving us towards?
I won't.