[Acme]

I've had a cable modem with AT&T Broadband for several year now, but just now decided to make use of my free web space. As I was going through the signup process, I came to a page that listed a bunch of options for building the site automatically. Just for fun I started selecting options, and I clicked the button for something called "SecureBuy" that I guess lets me process payments. The following screen gave me a huge list of things I can and can't use SecureBuy for.

I'm going to quote a small part of that page:

AT&T reserves the right not to host or continue to host any Store which violates our Terms and Conditions or Guidelines or which

A. Is illegal, obscene, offensive, dangerous, vulgar, or otherwise inappropriate.
B. Has received customer complaints that in our judgement are excessive regarding accessibility, timely fulfillment of orders, quality of merchandise, poor customer service, or other issues.
C. Is subject to government complaint or investigation.

Specifically, AT&T will not host sites which offer products or services related to the following:

A. Firearms
B. Ammunition
C. Fireworks
D. Gambling, raffles, lotteries, multi-level marketing, pyramid or Ponzi schemes
E. Contests or sweepstakes of any kind
F. Tobacco
G. Drugs or Drug paraphernalia
H. Pornography or sexually oriented products or services
I. Escort Services
J. Stolen or illegal goods or services
K. Anything which infringes upon the copyright, trademark, trade secrets, patents, or right of privacy or publicity of someone else
Competitive local and long distance providers, Internet Service Providers, personal web publishing services, or any products or services that are directly competitive with AT&T products and services.

So firearms and ammunition officially rank with drugs and porn on the AT&T no-no list. At the moment I use an extremely high number of AT&T services.....I think I'm going to lose my lunch.

Acme

[dfrog]

Sounds like it's time to switch providers.:cuss:

[Phyphor]

You really should look into any other cable/DSL providers in your area, and their TOS rules.

[Acme]

My long distance and two cell phones are with AT&T too.

But I wonder if any of the other broadband providers and cell phone companies are any different.

Acme

[Pendragon]

I am no fan of AT&T but I don't think you can blame them on this one.

They are essentially telling you not to sell any regulated products through their system.

Everything mentioned is regulated in at least part of the country.

Keeps them out of a potential sticky wicket.

[joeislove]

Also, in our highly-litigious society, they're probably worried about liability angles, too.

[Hkmp5sd]

The following screen gave me a huge list of things I can and can't use SecureBuy for.

So set up your page and use PayPal or similar payment method.

[foghornl]

AT&T Broadband recently (last 18 months) bought out my cable provider Media One. they keep pushing the "digital cable" and "High speed Internet" in all the bills, cable ads, etc, but they don't have either of those in my area.

Sheeeeeeeeeeesssshhhhhh

[Acme]

AT&T Broadband recently (last 18 months) bought out my cable provider Media One.

Well, AT&T Broadband is owned by Comcast now, so you went through two buyouts in the last 18 months.


Good points everyone else made too. Especially the part about liability.

Acme

[Sean Smith]

I'm not real forgiving of companies that are anti-gun for the sake of it, but I suspect they are just trying to cover themselves against any possible liability for ANYTHING.

[TheeBadOne]

Pretty standard stuff

[raz-0]

Just to put it in perspective, most ISPs would not allow a COMMERCIAL store using residential service. I assume that is what you are paying for. The list seems to contain stuff that is likely to generate paperwork and overhead on a courtesy service.

Before you hang them, I'd suggest looking at their TOS for a business connection.

I'd suggest looking at the TOS for speakeasy.net for an ISP, for a website host, the list grows longer. They run ads touting themselves as a free-speech friendly ISP, and I haven't found firearm in their TOS.

[Peetmoss]

Speak with your wallet.

[Airwolf]

First of all, check out broadbandreports.com. It's one the best places for REALLY finding out about ISP's.

As for a recommendation, I use speakeasy.net. They are not the cheapest ISP but they have the least intrusive TOS/AUP that I've ever seen. They also have NO caps. In fact about a month ago they began to encourage subscribers to share their connections via WiFi.

As long as what you are doing isn't illegal or breaking their network, they don't care what you do with the connection (including P2P).