AT&T: Out of My In-Box!

Last week we witnessed Verizon trying to prevent a nonprofit from communicating with its own members because the company believed the content to be "unsavory." Under the pressure of The New York Times front-page story and a storm of criticism, they caved.

Now it's happened again: another communications company trying to limit communications of its subscribers. This time, AT&T has added a bizarre provision in its terms of service that its network subscribers -- anyone using AT&T for internet service -- cannot participate in "conduct that AT&T believes...tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."

So the message from AT&T is: if you're using AT&T for your e-mail, be careful what you say. Goodbye free speech. Hello, corporate censorship.

But let's be clear: the only one doing real damage to AT&T . . . is AT&T's own corporate policy .

Sadly, we have few alternative services. Over the past 10 years we have seen consolidation instead of competition. Where there were once 10 phone companies now there are but a measly four. Most of us have only two choices for Internet access and both are enormous companies. Our government has remained silent, if not complicit, as this consolidation has occurred. The FCC and Department of Justice have approved merger after merger, each of which reduced -- not encouraged -- competition.

Remember, today's "new" AT&T (which, not incidentally, has given over $1.8 million to Republican candidates) is really SBC, which, before it took over that telecom giant, gobbled up Ameritech, Pacific Bell, Bell South, and Cingular, among others. It's noteworthy that these companies originated as regulated utilities, charged with the rights and responsibilities of providing a public good. Yet today the regulators, instead of protecting the citizens of this country, protect and abet the companies that are eliminating consumer choice through voracious mergers.

Here at Working Assets, (where we offer long distance and mobile services) we believe in a free exchange of ideas, without the fear of Big Brother poised to pounce and terminate service. Unlike AT&T's corporate thought-control, we encourage free speech through member activism. We believe in the right to privacy. And we are active in lobbying to uphold net neutrality. In 2006, we generated more than 56,000 messages to the Senate in support of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006, and sent 20,000 messages to AOL in opposition to their proposed fees for preferential Internet service.

I leave you with one unsettling question. How does AT&T find out if we're writing e-mails that are "damaging their name? " Are they now tracking our in-boxes? If you read this and use AT&T for your Internet service, why not give this a try: e-mail this article to a friend. It's the most subversive thing AT&T thinks you can do.