Free Speech - It's a Good Thing After All

One of the things I missed during my blogging hiatus was the opportunity to bang out a quick rant when something pissed me off. With no Yak, my wife alone (mostly) was left to bear the burden of my frustrations with the world. But, hey, now it's your turn again (besides, she's a 1000 miles away as I type this).

So, anyway, a couple weeks ago I learned (via Boing Boing) that AT&T had in its terms of service, a clause that they could disconnect you if you criticized them. WTF?!? Does that mean if I write something here about how much AT&T sucks, I could suddenly find myself without cell service? That's just not cool! Sure, it's a private sector company and within the bounds of our telecommunications laws they can probably have anything in their TOS that they want, but still that's just not right!

Time to cancel our service! Time to organize a boycott and spread the word about the evils of Ma Bell!

Except that today Boing Boing reports that AT&T has revised their TOS to remove the offending clause and has now inserted a piece that states the company "respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view."

Ah, well. That's better. It's nice to see that the combined geek-wrath of Slashdot and Boing Boing has brought a corporate titan to its senses, at least on this issue. They're just lucky I wasn't blogging last month and didn't unleash my 4 readers on them!

Now, AT&T, about all that wiretapping and government surveillance without a warrant....

Tags: AT&T; free speech