Qwest Surrenders After Broadbanders Revolt
from the shining-a-light-on-terms-of-service dept
zanek writes "Broadband users large and small have been threatening to leave Qwest over the company's new rules. The fresh edicts seemed to bar using Qwest lines by many servers that had already signed up. In addition, those whose accounts were connected with spam in any way risked charges with no upper limits. After a weak verbal defense, Qwest capitulated. Email Battles compares the "before" with the "after."" As we mentioned, ridiculous terms of service are nothing new (and rarely enforced), but it's good to shine some light on them before they cause real problems. Update: Email Battles admits they made a mistake in their original analysis. Qwest only made minor modifications, but left the $5 per spam part in -- which was the main problem we originally noted.
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Not so much
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Yes, it's illegal (sort of) under the CAN SPAM law. However, the point is that Qwest's ToS is a little different. They're not saying if you're the spammer, just if your connection is used for spam. And, since so many spammers have been able to use zombie machines infected by trojans, that means that many innocent people may suddenly owe millions of dollars because their computers -- completely unbeknownst to them -- have been sending spam. That's the complaint.
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