Newsletter Archive

The Internet 800 Directory - http://www.inter800.com
The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter
This issue is for Friday, March 18, 2005
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Table of Contents
01. Private AIM Messaging?
02. Bewildering Bills
03. Tip Of The Week
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*01 Private AIM Messaging?

Recently a number of people online were writing about a change made to
terms of service for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). This program is used
to provide messaging service for both AOL and Netscape users. The reason
for this sudden attention is the wording in their terms of service. They
have, in the last couple of days changed, the terms and when you read
this you will understand why.

You can see the old terms of service by using the "WaybackMachine" at
this link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040206080440/http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp

Here is the wording that caused the problem:
"Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right,
title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns
all right, title and interest in any compilation, collective work or
other derivative work created by AOL using or incorporating this
Content. In addition, by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant
AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees
the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display,
perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You
waive any right to privacy. You waive any right to inspect or approve
uses of the Content or to be compensated for any such uses."

In these terms of service, anything you send using AIM Instant Messenger
would give AOL "irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce,
display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content". Not to
mention, "you waive any right to privacy" in any messages you send using
this software. Is this a service anybody would want to use under these
terms? AOL knew the answer; they changed the terms of service and posted
a "Reaction to Rumors" on the terms page
(http://www.aim.com/tos/tos.adp).

The new terms state:
"As explained in detail in the AIM Privacy Policy, AOL does not read
your private online communications when you use any of the communication
tools on AIM Products."

When you read the AIM Privacy Policy
(http://www.aim.com/tos/privacy_policy.adp), you now find out they don't
read your messages, but they do save them.

"Your AIM information, including the contents of your online
communications, may be accessed and disclosed in response to legal
process (for example, a court order, search warrant or subpoena), or in
other circumstances in which AOL has a good faith belief that AIM or AOL
are being used for unlawful purposes. AOL may also access or disclose
your AIM information when necessary to protect the rights or property of
AIM or AOL, or in special cases such as a threat to your safety or that
of others."

The lesson, while "Instant Messenger" might seem private, that's one
thing it's not.  Bet you thought I was going to say, you must read and
understand the terms of service before using any software-nobody does
that. That's why it was weeks before AOL got busted on this clunker.

Chuck Arning chuck@inter800.com
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*02 Bewildering Bills

Re:	Business and Money article in Albuquerque Journal dated March 13,
2005, entitled "Bewildering Bills."

There's something wrong here:

Of all of the other Bewildering Bill charges, one stands out as on
ongoing travesty.  Per the article, Item 9 says, "Federal Access Charge:
$6.50".  This charge was imposed after to breakup of AT&T (or Ma Bell)
in 1984 to allow Qwest, a Baby Bell, to re-coup revenues lost because of
the breakup.

In fairness, this law applied to all 7 of the "Baby Bells," which were
later referred to primarily as InterExchange Carriers (IXCs), not just
Qwest, which was US West at the time.

However, why is that law still in effect?  It was designed to allow
those Baby Bells to re-coup heir investment for having to create a
system in order to break-up a monopoly, which the Federal Government
decided was unfair.  (I'm not sure that the monopoly was not worse than
the result. It's sort of like burning down the barn to get rid of the
rats, and 30 years later the rats build a bigger barn.  From what I read
one of the "Babies" is going to eat the "Momma".)

Nonetheless, back to the issue to hand.

The law called for a "recoup" of investment to allow the Baby Bells to
provide service that their Mama did before the Feds stepped in.  As
inane as that decision was, let's just address that fact.  All of the
Baby Bells were allowed to change a federally imposed fee of $6.50 per
customer per month for the so-called "recouping", as per the article.

Allow me to attempt to calculate that:

>From January 1, 1984 to that date of this letter, that's at least 30
years and some months  (Let's forget 2005, just to round it off) 30 X 12
= 360 X $6.50 X the number of customers that have paid that for 30
years.  I don't have the time to figure out how my customers here are in
the US with phone service, but there are about 290 million people in the
US, according to the published US Census Bureau.

Now at the average number of people per household of 4.1, then that's
about 70.1 million households.  Let's presume a very conservative number
that 2/3 of those households have telephone service, of which they're
paying that $6.50/month "recoupant" fee. (Actually, if we wanted to use
"Access Lines" as a basis, according to the last published FCC
Statistics of Communications Common Carriers, dated 10/12/04 and
available on http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/iatd/socc.html, then we are WAY
underestimating these figures, which would exceed 300 million access
lines. Qwest publishes the fact that it delivers to over 15.5 million
access lines with 4.5 million long distance customers, on its web site).
However, in a gross effort on our part to be conservative, let's use the
46.6 million hook-ups being charged that amount. That's not counting
business lines.

Ergo, $6.50 X  46.7 million = $303,550,000 per month. (Whoops, I need a
new calculator) Can that be right?!  Let me try it again. Yep, that's
right. Now over 30 years that's 360 x that, which equals
$109,278,000,000. Even if we discounted it by growth factors over the
last 20 years, our underestimation would probably hold up.

Gee, it seems that for $109 billion dollars we'd all have free phone
service and wireless broad bandwidth, doesn't it.  And why are we still
paying this to "recoup" the investment?

Give me that $109 billion dollars and George Bush and I will personally
re-wire the whole country, with Bill Gates as our go-fer.

It's an inconceivable law and fee that needs to be repealed.

Steven Jackson - saj@inter800.com
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Tip of the Week

Sam Spade (http://samspade.org/) for Windows

This is a free program that provides several useful Internet tools;
things like Ping, Nslookup, Traceroute, Finger, and Whois.

Next time you are having trouble with the Internet or want information
on domain, this tool will help.

You can download it hear: http://samspade.org/ssw/download.html

If you have any tips or shortcuts that you think the readers of this
Newsletter will find useful, send them to chuck@inter800.com

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