World Dialogue on Regulation

If your Internet service provider is AT&T, you might want to think twice about forwarding or reposting this item on your website. The AT&T standard contract now contains a clause stating that customer service can be terminated, among other reasons, for besmirching the good reputation of the company and its family. Somewhat vague for a contract, the AT&T wording refers to any action that "tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries".

Section 5 of AT&T's legal Terms of Service, stipulates:

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.

We wonder whether this right to deny service could legally extend to a regulatory authority office serviced by AT&T? Could a service provider dictate such terms to a regulator? Or would the regulator by the terms of its own mandate be required to stem any semblance of regulatory capture and change providers? 

Clearly this raises some issues around freedom of speech and expression. Ken Fisher, from the ars technica blog comments further on logistical legal practicalities of maintaining such a stance: 

As an Internet service provider, AT&T itself is protected from lawsuits relating to the distribution of illegal materials online because they are excused from having to monitor and police their own networks from such activity. They are also protected against what their users say and do online. For instance, if I'm an AT&T customer and I posted damaging comments about Vodafone using AT&T's service, Vodafone can't go after AT&T just because they're my (fictional) ISP. Yet if AT&T begins to monitor and police its own network to protect its own corporate identity, the company will be setting itself up for lawsuits from parties looking for the same protections as AT&T grants itself. In this way, AT&T has to tread reasonably.

See also a recent LIRNEasia post on Verizon blocking text messages entitled Convergence versus common-carrier principles.