Qwest Clarifies $5 Spam TOS ClauseWon't be levied at infected users ( old news - 09:18AM Thursday Jan 19 2006) Qwest has responded in the Denver Post to recent user concerns about their terms of service; one clause claiming users would have to pay $5 for each spam e-mail sent from their account (users were worried this included infection). "It is not Qwest policy to terminate the account of someone who was a victim of spammers or malicious activities, and we have no plans to do so," says the company. The company recently revamped other portions of the TOS after user complaints.
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Camelot One
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-21
Sarasota, FL
clubs:
 ·VoicePulse
| How far will they take it? Ok so they've just given spammers the way out. Infect their own machine with their own mailer virus, and they are safe from fines and losing service.
How far will Quest go to prove the user is innocent? Is it just assumed? If so, whats the point in having the policy at all?
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AMD X2 4400+ @2475Mhz/ MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum SLI/ 2x 1024Mb Corsair XMS PC4000/ WD 74Gb Raptor/ PNY 7800GTs SLI/ Antec 550 True Control/Custom water cooler | |
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en102
Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | Re: How far will they take it? It doesn't say anywhere that they still won't charge $5/email, just that wthen won't cancel your account. | |
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packetscan
Premium
join:2004-10-19
Bridgeport, CT
clubs:
 ·Optimum Online
| Clarify this I don't care what you "mean" to say, Clarify all you want.
Put it in writing that this 5 dollar clause is not applicable to virus infections.
Because of there current TOS they can go after every single user!
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Who do you want to pay off today? | |
| | tlniec
join:2004-08-02
Cedar Rapids, IA | Re: Clarify this Exactly... if this 'clarification' isn't written into the ToS, it's meaningless. | |
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vpoko
Premium
join:2003-07-03
Jamaica Plain, MA
| Re: Clarify this said by tlniec  :Exactly... if this 'clarification' isn't written into the ToS, it's meaningless. That's not true, look up "legal estopel". If somebody who you have a contract with makes a claim contrary to the contract (without modifying it) and then attempts to enforce the original terms of the contract, you can make an estopel defense. | |
| | | | jpark
join:2005-02-05
Jackson, TN
| Re: Clarify this said by vpoko :said by tlniec :Exactly... if this 'clarification' isn't written into the ToS, it's meaningless. That's not true, look up "legal estopel". If somebody who you have a contract with makes a claim contrary to the contract (without modifying it) and then attempts to enforce the original terms of the contract, you can make an estopel defense. Sure. If you have the money to support legal action. Having a defence doesn't keep the TOS from threatening you. | |
| six9
join:2001-12-03
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| Why change it? For God's sake...they should have left it that way. This is just like when someone says something politically incorrect, the next day they apologize, no matter how truthful they were being.
I say fine the hell out of the zombies until they get their machines fixed. For someone to be on high speed and not running AV and fully patched is just STUPID! Even my old parents on dial up run AV and automatic updates. How hard is that? Granted, that doesn't stop malware, but it would help with the viruses causing spam.
ISPs need to start taking a hard line on this matter. If they see an IP spamming, shut 'er down. Shut down port 25 unless they are asked to open it. The amount of spam I see trying to come into my office from residential boxes is friggin ridiculous. I would venture to say that just about all the spam that attempts to get by the 'Cuda are residential in nature. Some hours, there are 1500 email attempts and all are from residential addresses, rr.com, comcast.net, adsl.bellsouth.net, etc. When are the ISPs going to do something? How hard would it be for them to block 25 outgoing on their DHCP range? Of course we all know that might not work for long, the zombies would just change port.
And what good is it to have a penalty of 5 bucks per spam if they exclude zombies? Who are they ever going to hit with that? Does anyone spam the old fashioned way nowadays? | |
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n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
·Optimum Online
| Re: Why change it? said by Omega :When someone steals your car, and uses it for additional illegal activities, are you punished for it? Maybe. If you leave your car parked on the street in a rough area with the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition and someone steals the car and commits a crime, you might face some charge as you did not take the most basic steps to prevent the theft of your vehicle. At the very least your insurance may not be willing to pay if they find out you did nothing to secure the vehicle.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
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TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium
join:2000-11-08
Brooklyn NYC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| said by Omega :When someone steals your car, and uses it for additional illegal activities, are you punished for it? You certainly can be if the theft, and injury due to the theft was due to your "recklessness, disregard for safety."
It's on the books in every state, and people have been charged, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for it.
"Recklessness, disregard for safety." is a crime when it causes harm to others, as it should be!
Bob
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Motor Vessel - Tamara B.
43' Long-Range Trawler
Cape Elizebeth ME.
See her Here. | |
| | | | six9
join:2001-12-03
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| Re: Why change it? How about a better crime analogy:
You take a buddy to work and he leaves a bag of weed under the seat.
You go home and get caught speeding or run through a stop sign.
You get arrested for the weed. Case in point, Michael Irvin recently. It doesn't matter that it's not yours, it is in your possession.
I think the same thing can go for viruses, zombies, anything else. You ride with questionable individuals (unpatched PC on a high speed connection) and you get the consequences. | |
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TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium
join:2000-11-08
Brooklyn NYC
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Why change it? said by six9 :How about a better crime analogy:
There is much blame for the spam, phish, compromised-PC, identity-theft, credit-card theft pandemic to go around. Much of it has to do with reckless disregard by the user. But a lot of it has to do with the manufacturer. The manufacturer's disregard for safety, and the manufacturer's deceptive marketing and advertising practices.
If a car manufacturer produced a car which was easily broken into, whose locks were defective, which required almost daily "fixes" to keep intruders and car thieves out, and then advertised it as the most secure, and easily-driven, and maintained car on the market, then he should shoulder some of the blame, and a lot of the responsibility and cost. It is hard to blame every user for this pandemic, when the product itself is so defective, and requires almost daily fixes to maintain, even for the most conscientious owner.
What I find so amazing, is the total lack of responsibility ascribed to the manufacturer, even from those who have been injured by the defects due to no fault of their own. Where is the public outcry?
Why do you suppose that is? If this were a car, things would be very different; fines would be levied, the manufacturer would have to pay at least a portion of the damage.
Bob
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Motor Vessel - Tamara B.
43' Long-Range Trawler
Cape Elizebeth ME.
See her Here. | |
| | | | | | six9
join:2001-12-03
Atlanta, GA
·Comcast
| Re: Why change it? said by user=TamaraB :
The manufacturer's disregard for safety, and the manufacturer's deceptive marketing and advertising practices.
Alas... There you go. I hear ya man! But you can't possibly be talking about Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.
From how I read that, blame M$ for only allowing either admin or user for XP Home. (Yes, i know you can do it but it is a PITA to set up accounts that are more than user and less than admin) Face it, Joe Blow buying a Dell isn't going to drop an extra $119 on XP Pro so he can run limited users. That's what we do. And even if we pass on Pro at ordering, we use VLK copies so we don't deal with activation.
I cringed at what one of my users told me today. She said "a friend of mine downloaded Office XP for me off Limewire" and all I could think of was "what kind of viruses and spyware you must have."
I still feel ISPs have a hand in this. When they run the CD on machines, set up a proxy that blocks CWS, gator, etc. WE know how to get rid of it but grandma doesn't need to. Back in the days of @Home their CD set up proxies. That rocked if your IP was banned from a site. Back then IPs were static too. Gawd, for the old days. LOL! | |
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TamaraB
Question The Current Paradigm
Premium
join:2000-11-08
Brooklyn NYC
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Why change it?said by six9 : Back then IPs were static too. Gawd, for the old days. LOL!
Yeah! I still use my Lynx, elm, and my NN as much as I can. It's getting more difficult. But NOTHING beats a good text-based client for speed and cleanliness! Them days are all but gone though 
Bob
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Motor Vessel - Tamara B.
43' Long-Range Trawler
Cape Elizebeth ME.
See her Here. | |
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sweintz
Premium
join:2002-03-01
Hamden, CT
| said by Omega :When someone steals your car, and uses it for additional illegal activities, are you punished for it? Depending on circumstances, sometimes the answer to that is YES. If negligence on the part of the car owner can be proven (ie: he left it unlocked in a high crime neighborhood) the owner can be held liable in civil court.
putting a PC on the internet without understanding the security risks (AV needed, firewall needed, etc) is negligent, IMO.
at the very least, qwest should be suspending the accounts of infected users until they clean them up. $5 a spam is a bit much for something unintentional. But they SHOULD suspend on first offense, terminate on second offense for infected PC's. | |
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drkkgt
Boo
Premium
join:2003-08-26
Whittier, CA
| Since they seem to think they can find the offender to charge $5 (unlike a previous article where ISPs said it would be too much trouble,) and they agree that they offender may not be aware they are infected, wouldn't it make more sense to send a note with their bill saying the users have a certain time period to fix their machine and provide some basic info on how to do it (like links to the major AV vendors, spamhaus, spybot, site etc. or referring them to a repair facility.)
Set the time limit and go back and check, if they aren't fixed, start charging extra or block them.
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"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila."-Mitch Ratliffe | |
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bbrlogue
Learning New Things Daily
Premium
join:2003-12-07
Alexandria, VA
| Zero tolerance They shouldn't exclude spams from infection. Perhaps they could limit the exclusion to the first 48- or 72-hr after the infection, but then if the computer is left unpatched after a warning, a fine would be assessed. This is similar to your lost credit card/ATM policy.
Users should be responsible for an infection due to negligence or lack of efforts in maintaining their own computer security.
For the regular users, an ISP could then offer an additional service level for a fee, in which the ISP would maintain the security patches, etc (a la corporate networks), and those who are at this service level would be immune to the fine if it was indeed caused by an infection.
I understand that there is no panachea. Even on a corporate network that is maintained by a big-3-letter company, it took weeks for them to clean up some infected storefront computers that kept sending spam to my internal corporate inbox. | |
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Transmaster
Don't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY
·Qwest.net
| Re: Zero tolerance Well there is this...»pack.google.com/
What gets me is Qwest offers the MSN premium service as part of one of their service packages MSN includes a very good security suite. There is really no excuse for Zombies except for the ignorance of the user. Because of this I think security packages should be a part of any ISP's service package.
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Low voltage Tech's are wimps, Real tech's use 45 pound filament transformers, plate voltages no less then 2400 volts with at least 10 amp's lighting 8877 triodes...BPL I'm coming to get you. | |
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danawhitaker
Space...The Final Frontier
Premium
join:2002-03-02
Urbandale, IA
·MSN
·Mediacom
| Re: Zero tolerance "What gets me is Qwest offers the MSN premium service as part of one of their service packages MSN includes a very good security suite. There is really no excuse for Zombies except for the ignorance of the user. Because of this I think security packages should be a part of any ISP's service package."
I'm a Qwest user, and that security suite will never, ever touch my machine. Nor will Google's. Hell, half of the stuff Google includes in that pack is stuff I will never allow to be installed on one of my machines again - Google Desktop and Norton being the main two. In the case of the MSN Premium pack, they can shove McAfee where the sun doesn't shine. That consistently deleted my FTP server while it was running without my permission when I tried it on my system. Some security software does more harm than good for those of us who know what we're doing.
I don't do things that are going to get me deliberately infected with crap in the first place (shady surfing, e-mail) but I don't like the thought that Qwest could charge me $5 per spam if something (god-willing) did happen to my machine and it started spewing crap. Broadband isn't one of those things anymore that should be considered such a luxury to assume someone who subscribes could afford $5 per spam if they got infected. There are better solutions, starting with teaching people HOW to keep their systems clean in the first place so that they don't need 800 pieces of security software that are just irritating and bog down the system in much the same way as a virus might. Norton started giving me BSODs on a daily basis back in 2003 - I honestly think I'd rather be unknowingly slinging spam around the internet than experience that again.
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You're watching Sports Night on CSC so stick around... | |
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JamesPC
join:2005-10-12
Orange, CA
| Who is Responseible? Who is responsible for the lack of knowledge by the user? I dont think its the manufactures Job to in lighten us about all of the exploits in this vast complicated un managed field. Ex. When you buy a car the dealer assumes you know how to drive and he is not going to give you a course in driving techniques. Therefore is not responsible for the outcome of your lack of knowledge. But the insurance company will be because that is there Job, to find out what kind of driver you are and the liabilities you will make. Ultimately the responsibility falls on the ISP because we are paying them for the service. They own the network and are propagating the problem. If the ISP had such a problem then raise the price to get more answers (better network technology) on fight there internal network problem. If every isp had this thought than we would not have this problem but the answer is always with the money and the American people always want it cheaper. So we are fighting a loosing battle until people finally the whole network becomes so clogged that everyone will be fed up with the fact. | |
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