Doctorow Tears Up ISP Contract Over Net Neutrality

Burz writes "As a reaction to Virgin Media CEO's promise to violate the concept of net neutrality, Cory Doctorow is declaring his ISP contract void, canceling the service, and calling on other Virgin customers to do the same. He isn't alone. Charlie Stross counts the ways the gang that became Virgin Media is trashing Sir Richard's brand. Myself, I am thinking of stopping my Virgin Mobile service in protest."

Losing your Virginity...

[by Anonymous Coward]

feels great!

Anyone else misread that

[electricbern (1222632)]

as Doctor who?

Options

[CDOS_CDOS run (669823)]

Thats nice if there is more than 1 broadband option where you live.

Re:Options

[Spad (470073)]

This being the UK, you've got a choice of tens, if not hundreds of different ADSL providers available to you, some using BT, some with LLU setups.

Though to make use of them you would have to cancel all of your Virgin Media services (Internet, TV, Phone) and get a BT line instead.

Re:

[The MAZZTer (911996)]

Wow, you British really know how to live! Dedicated internet connections for BitTorrent?

Seriously though, I don't know what a BT line is. >_>

Re:Options

[lysse (516445)]

Yeah. That's great, in theory. I just moved into a new house, and BT quoted me the standard £124.99 for an engineer to come and install a phone line, because according to them there is "no record" of a line existing at the house.

When I stare at the BT phone point just below the window, which is visibly and directly connected to the nearest telegraph pole outside, I'm not sure whether to cry, rage, or send BT the contents of the nearby litter tray.

Re:Options

[MadMidnightBomber (894759)]

I also used to work for BT and there a couple of points I feel I should make.

1. When moving between buildings in BT Labs, Martlesham Heath (now Adastral Park?) we couldn't keep the same internal phone numbers.

2. That's all.

Re:

[mikael_j (106439)]

1.5 miles is about 2.4 km, right? You should have no problem getting DSL at those distances unless the phone lines are of seriously poor quality. Admittedly you won't be getting 24/3 ADSL2+ Annex M but 2/0.8 shouldn't be a problem.

/Mikael

Re:Options

[Naughty Bob (1004174)]

In the UK, I don't think there's anywhere with only 1 (ADSL broadband, cable's a different deal)option, by virtue of the way in which BT is required to open its network. However, you still have to pay BT a line rental charge in addition to your Virgin (or whomever) account.

Re:Options

[lobiusmoop (305328)]

Have a look at this ADSL ratings page [dslzoneuk.net] and check out 'Karoo' - the only ADSL service in Hull allegedly and making optimum use of its monopoly position to be awful.

Do we just become numb?

[abolitiontheory (1138999)]

I wonder if there will be a day when net neutrality has been usurped, despite all the protests, and we've come to accept as the status quo. And then, all of a sudden, another *unconscionable* development of corporate greed takes place, in which we have the same uproar, and the same eventual defeat. Can anyone think of examples in the past where has taken place? I'm not coming up with anything that passes a basic coherency test, but this has to be some cycle we go through on a regular basis. Do these things ever lead to positive outcomes, or are we just the man in front of the tank?

Re:Do we just become numb?

[retech (1228598)]

I think that corporations rely on the apathy of the masses. Rallying points were important when people started unions and women got to vote. But once a society gets to a sustainable level of comfort those people will do nothing that risks that comfort.

People stood up to corporate greed when they abolished sweats shops. In fact they just moved the sweat shops to a less noticeable location. Once rediscovered those same ppl who once fought against sweat shops just said: "meh, not my worry" and went home to their 2.5 kids and 2 car garages.

Apathy is a wonderful way to keep the masses controlled. It works far better than any chain or enslavement could have.

Re:Do we just become numb?

[Bieeanda (961632)]

This is precisely right. It's also what gives them a huge kick in the ass when they go just a little too far, like Rogers Cable did over here about ten years ago. As what was usual, they added a pile of new channels that nobody really wanted and raised subscription prices accordingly. They also moved a number of popular channels further up the dial, where a vast number of older cable boxes couldn't functionally reach. Their only suggestion was to rent a new cable box, which was just adding insult to injury.

Now, there was an alternative: We could go to the cable company and ask to have the new channels removed. There was no way to do it over the phone, you had to find out where your local cable shop was, drive down there, and hassle the girl behind the counter. Rogers clearly assumed that since we'd swallowed their shit for so long, another mouthful would go down just as smoothly.

Hundreds of thousands of subscribers descended on their outlets, fuming mad, demanding their service be return to its previous state, or canceling cable outright. Rogers got the message, the CRTC got the message, and for once shit actually changed.

Re:Do we just become numb?

[Sentry21 (8183)]

As what was usual, they added a pile of new channels that nobody really wanted and raised subscription prices accordingly.

While this is technically accurate, it leaves out an important detail - namely that these channels weren't added to available plans, but rather they were added to everyone's bill. Rogers went to all of their customers and gave them all the channels; when people complained after getting their bill, Rogers insisted that they should have called to cancel the channels if they didn't want them.

Unfortunately at the time, this practice wasn't illegal. Thanks to Rogers, it is now. Oh, and they lost so much goodwill in the area that they had to bail out, and swapped their BC holdings with Shaw's Ontario holdings. Now we have Shaw, and things are light years better than Rogers could ever manage.

Re:

[Culture20 (968837)]

Google buttons and guilds for a bit.

Re:

[Monkeyman334 (205694)]

Here's one that pisses me off that nobody cares about. When you go to get cell phone service they offer you a cheaper phone if you get a contract. The idea being that your cell phone service fee is subsidizing the cost of the phone, and you're really paying for it over time. But why don't they give a lower service rate for people that buy their own phones? It's a scam to lock out 3rd party phones. Nobody cares about it, and I often have a hard time explaining it to people, but the lack of competition has to

Re:Do we just become numb?

[jd (1658)]

Let's think...

• Skilled workers replaced by machines with child operators (not directly comparable, but the same basic idea that corporations know best, together with very successful corporate propoganda that the disenfrancised were - by definition - ignorant savages and terrorists. Propoganda that has become a part of the common language through the name of one of the campaigners for worker's rights.)
• Higher Education (in Britain, at least) being switched from a State-funded right of all to a luxury paid for by the individual

I was going to give a few other examples, such as the health care industry, but realized that in most cases I could think of, the service or provider has always been corrupt and neither the standard of service or our expectations of it have really changed. It's merely less hidden.

Re:

[bill_kress (99356)]

First was not drugs. There is a continual cycle that probably started when the first 5 cavemen got together and started hogging the women.

Mankind has a nature to drift towards ruling and ruled classes, and the divide grows until someone freaks out and--well historically anyway--kills all the rulers.

These days it's not supposed to be so violent or absolute. You have governments that are supposed to control companies and it is supposed to keep the pendulum from swinging so far that it starts to cut off head

Re:

[Hatta (162192)]

We've gone from the Electronic Frontier to a bunch of company towns run by greedy bastards and populated by idjiots who are happy as long as their YouTube videos play OK.

Sounds a lot like the historical Western Frontier.

Resolving todays problem cost me £25 :(

[QX-Mat (460729)]

I dont have a virgin phone service. A billing "discrepancy" from last year, an offer I bartered for, was fixed last month with Virgin claiming to shoulder the costs. What actually happened is they added the XL phone package to my discounted XL TV + XL Broadband offer. I have been a customer for 18 months, and I bartered for my previous deal of £41.50/pm only to have them add the Phone package without informing me, and charge me £70.

I rang to cancel and let them know I intended to move to sky and and was offered my old £41.50 offer at a no-contract rate of £49pm (I'm not sure where I'll be living in 3 months, so I can't get a contract). Problem fixed, or so I believe. The debt collection team phone me this morning to inform me my direct debit had bounced - and it would do if it was in excess of £50 as the account is for bills only, and is credited with a standing order for the appropriate amount each month.

It transpires (I guessed it instantly), that after billing me £70 and changing it back to the negotiated rate of £49, they discounted next months direct debit by £20, so that the net 2 month charge would be equal to my negotiated rate over 2 months.

But! That doesn't mean I can pay £70 in one month for a problem they have caused, because I subject to cash flow issues. To make things worst, I have been charged by my bank for the defaulting direct debit, wasted £15 on the phone last time I called, and £10 today.

Today was awful! I was called this morning by the debt collection team who would not let me pay £49 or change my direct debit, until I settled the £70 mistake, even tho it was obvious the real amount was £49 based on the remedied discount applied to the next bill. I'm forced to pay for their mistake!?! They told me there was nothing they could do, and that I had to phone them back and fixed the issue. I got through to India twice and was told the same thing, only that the team that called me was the team that dealt with it. In the end I gave up. I asked to be put through to the cancellation team.

The cancellation team were great. The credit was applied to this month, and my outstanding balance returned to what I should pay/can pay. I've praised VM in the past, and will continue to do so in the future - but only their cancellation team, as they're the only ones with the power to resolve your problems.

I am contemplating billing VM for the saga cost me £20 in phone calls (I have a mobile phone, and no one would phone me!), and the bounced direct debit penalty stemming from their inability to resolve the problem when I called them and they called me.

Matt

Re:Resolving todays problem cost me £25 :(

[jmichaelg (148257)]

If you lived here in California, you could take Virgin to Small Claims Court. No attorneys, just you, the company rep, a judge and a claim for less than $7,000. I've used the court twice to resolve, in my favor, similar kinds of screwups.

Perhaps you have a similar court in England?

Re:

[Wierdy1024 (902573)]

Has anyone here on /. had any luck in just sending an invoice to these big companies for this sort of thing and have it paid?

I wonder if their accounts dept. just pay this sort of thing for small amounts without checking thoroughly?

Cory who?

[thePowerOfGrayskull (905905)]

Why do I care? Am I supposed to be impressed that submitter is "considering stopping [his] Virgin Mobile service in protest"? On my way to work today, I considered pushing a fisherman off the bridge so that I could giggle whilst watching him splash about in the water -- it's a far cry from doing it.

Legal side - abuse of a dominant position?!

[QX-Mat (460729)]

Article 82 - abuse of a dominant position.

        A82 is directly enforceable in the national courts. VM has a dominant position in the UK broadband market - this is an automatic presumption in the cable market as their share is 100%, and, based on the structure of the UK backbone-network, a reasonable and fair assumption regarding broadband in general.

        they are acting in a manor that can only be said to be taking unfair advantage of their position to the detriment of the broadband market in general - and they are doing this independently of us the consumer: ie: we get this crap and there is absolutely nothing we can do.

        whilst having a dominant market share, and being in a monopolist position is _not_ illegal - abusing this position is. VM are starting a consumer/isp war that the consumers cannot win. they are abusing the technological development of the UK's broadband system by prejudicing our use in a way we cannot avoid. an utterly artificial creation.

        as VM own the cable network, there is no cross elastic supply. the consumer is lacked into contracts which generally fall foul of elastic demand the moment they abuse their position. the good news is that no VM customer is bound to their unfair contracts that stifle the advancement of uk broadband - be it traffic shaping or whatnot.

        vote with your wallets - sign up to another ISP!

Different idea

[xerxesVII (707232)]

How about instead of ranting and talking about boycotts, he and his gang of tech-hippies start some sort of movement where they either flat out block requests from certain ISPs or at least throw up a "Here's our complaint about this ISP and why you should be using them" interstitial? That's the sort of thing that gets people to sit up and take notice.

serves the fucktards right

[unity100 (970058)]

excuse me, this aint gonna be a smooth, politically correct post. im gonna flat out say what im feeling and thinking, as a customer.

you invent something new, you build an entire telecommunications infrastructure, hell, even a new medium, a way of life (internet) over it, it becomes a big success, and after a while a few FUCKTARDS comes up and and try to scuttle the CORE principle that made that big success for their personal greedy agenda. and furthermore, there comes a total PRICK, so PRICKY that he harbors the courage to SINGLE HANDEDLY trash and abolish those principles (net neutrality) in lieu of ENTIRE internet, internet tradition, all functioning services, companies and agreements up to date, in lieu of the LAW, in lieu of what they promised their customers, and anything.

im not a violent person. im a hippie in concept even. has history as my hobby and whatnot, and like classical music. but even i know that such people, who are that selfish and greedy enough to commit bastardizations like these in lieu of EVERYthing, deserve one single response : a strong, sharp kick in the middle of their face. literally.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Chyeld (713439)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow [wikipedia.org]

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Trotskyist teachers, Doctorow was raised in an activist household, working in the nuclear disarmament movement and as a Greenpeace campaigner as a child. He later served on the board of directors for the Grindstone Island Co-operative on Big Rideau Lake in Ontario, helping to run a conference center devoted to peace and social justice education and activist training. He received his high school diploma from SEED School, a free school in Toronto, and dropped out of four universities without attaining a degree.

Doctorow moved to Los Angeles, California in mid-2006 from London, England, where he had worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation for four years, helping to set up the Open Rights Group, before quitting to pursue writing full-time in January 2006. Upon his departure, Doctorow was named a Fellow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Doctorow spent the 2006-2007 academic year teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California, despite not holding any academic degree. He then returned to London. He is a frequent public speaker on copyright issues.

Doctorow's daughter with Alice Taylor, Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, was born on 3 February 2008.

Cory's parents have suggested that he is related to author E.L. Doctorow, but E.L. Doctorow himself could not confirm or deny the family connection.

----
Don't know, sounds like someone I'd care about...

Re:Stuff that matters

[CallFinalClass (801589)]

Meh. Can't hold a job. Can't get a degree. I may or may not be kidding about this.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Otter (3800)]

Doctorow's daughter with Alice Taylor, Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, was born on 3 February 2008.

Is this a case of Wikipedia vandalism, or does his insatiable attention-whoring extend to ruining his poor daughter's life?

Re:Stuff that matters

[Saberwind (50430)]

Unfortunately, it's not vandalism. [boingboing.net] (sorry, posted this under the wrong comment earlier...then Slashdot wouldn't let me post a reply to your comment because the comment ID wasn't found...)

Re:

[geekoid (135745)]

"..Greenpeace campaigner as a child. "

That's not a plus. Greenpeace puts peoples lives at stake, and lies to bully large corporation. Green Peace lost any vestige of what it was around 1980.

Re:Stuff that matters

[Spad (470073)]

It's not actually Branson's company, he just (foolishly) licensed the brand to NTL Telewest so they could use it.

Re:Good for you. Dump sir Richard.

[Skyshadow (508)]

These boycotts are always so effective.

That really is the issue here. You're never, ever going to get enough people to dump an individual ISP over this sort of thing to make their brass go, "Whoa! We'd better not do that!". The issue is simply too involved for the 'average' net user to really understand well enough to care about.

Some things require legislative solutions, and this is clearly one of those things. While I'm not saying that users of Virgin Media *shouldn't* change providers, it should be recognized that it's nothing but a symbolic step. If you really want to see this sort of nonsense avoided, contributing to the EFF might be a far better use of money.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

If you can't convince enough customers to switch providers, perhaps that is a sign that the issue is not as dire as you think.

I'm always annoyed when people jump straight to the legislative "solution". Get the word out, start web sites, educate people. If the populace is ignorant about the problem then remove their ignorance.

These companies love making money above everything else. There are still enough choices left that you can make them realize that the way to make money is to be a good citizen. If they a

Re:

[Skyshadow (508)]

Public apathy does not mean that an issue isn't worth fighting for. Fortunately, we're set up as a republic for just such an emergency.

Re:Good for you. Dump sir Richard.

[nysus (162232)]

Think for a moment how incredibly inefficient what you are proposing is. Every single time a company does something stupid that's detrimental to the rest of us we have to organize a boycott and start educating everyone else? No thanks.

We have government to make this process easier. It makes laws and it enforces them. We elect people run it for us. It collects taxes to finance itself. Perfect? Hell no. But government is certainly a of a lot better and reliable than having everybody trying to police everybody else. I don't know about you, but I prefer living in an advanced modern society instead of a cave.

So, now, go out and educate your law maker as to why they need to pass a net neutrality law and we won't have to revisit this issue again.

Consumers Union

[tepples (727027)]

What consumers need are more consumer lobby groups.

People in the United States can join a consumers union. Membership starts at $26 per year, including a subscription to ConsumerReports.org.

Re:Consumers Union

[thePowerOfGrayskull (905905)]

So... in addition to voting for politicians who promise to do what I want, I now should pay to become an anonymous member of a large group that promises to do what I want, so that group can in turn bribe the politicians I already voted for?

Pass.

Here's a solution for the legislation-hungry out there: pass some legislation to limit the efforts and effectiveness of professional lobbyist groups. Then maybe you and I would have a chance of getting heard when we wrote to our representatives.

Re:What a joke.

[maxume (22995)]

I doubt you have a contract with Boing Boing agreeing that they will not censor reader comments, and I doubt that you are paying them all that much.

Re:

[Toonol (1057698)]

That's the most legitimate reason to censor blog comments. Why, was there some rude comment you really wanted to post?

I've never read his blog, by the way.

Re:Paperless Transactions

[Ctrl-Z (28806)]

You could just print them out and then tear them up as the need arises. In fact, you could print them out two or three times for additional satisfaction.

Re:Ouch

[Goldberg's Pants (139800)]

Any financial issues Blockbuster have are most likely down to an evolving marketplace, and not getting rid of worthless customers.

Doctrow is a hack. A pretentious windbag who a certain element of people seem to think represents their beliefs.

I'm sure Virgin are quaking in their boots at this "threat" from someone who if there name was said to 99.999999% of people would say "Who?"

Re:But what is he _really_ doing?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Err, no. Tiered pricing isn't like renting a better storefront. It's like having to pay the owners of the roads outside the houses of your customers so that they won't slow down your customers' cars whenever they try to drive to your store.

I can understand paying my ISP for a better connection for my server. But isn't it a bit perverse to have to then pay random other ISPs so that my customers are able to see the benefit of that better connection?

Re:But what is he _really_ doing?

[eldorel (828471)]

Allow me to continue with your storefront analogy.
You pay rent on your storefront, and I have to ride the bus to get there. We both pay depending on what we want.
You want more people in your store at a time, you pay more rent.
I want to be able to get there faster, I hire a taxi instead.

Where the problem lies is that now the bus/taxi companies want to charge you, the store owner, for the bus/taxi to stop at your shop.
If you don't pay, your customers will have to walk the last 1/2 mile, despite the fact that your shop is on the main road, and all traffic goes right past you.

In fact, it's not a far stretch to imagine the taxi driver suggesting alternate destinations.

Me: Take me to the local grocery store.
Driver: You're going shopping? Why don't I drop you at Walmart, It's 20 minutes faster.
Me: No it isn't, walmart is in the next town.
Driver: Yeah, But we have a contract with them, we drive everyone there first.


This isn't capitalism anymore, it's extortion.

Re:But what is he _really_ doing?

[Todd Knarr (15451)]

Except that what Virgin wants isn't tiered pricing. I look at net neutrality analogously to UPS delivery. UPS doesn't care who you are, or who you're shipping to, or what (modulo hazardous materials) you're shipping. They care about basically two things and two things only: how big/heavy your package is, and how far you're shipping it. If you and I both go in to the same UPS office to ship the same package to two recipients in the same city, UPS will charge us both the same price. Sure I'll pay more if I pick overnight shipping and you pick standard ground, but if I pick the same shipping as you I won't get nicked for more.

What Virgin wants, though, isn't anything analogous. Suppose the situation is that I'm buying mail-order, and as the customer I've paid the shipping charge for overnight delivery. What Virgin wants is to go to the merchant and go "We know your customer paid for overnight shipping. But if you, Mr. Merchant, don't cross our palm with some extra money on top of that, we won't deliver the package overnight. Oh, and don't think you can just stop offering overnight shipping, because if you ship standard we'll slow that down too unless you pay us.". This is known as "a kickback", and in every other field it gets you in legal trouble. For my money, I'm not willing to do business with someone who's demanding kickbacks.

Most of us geeks would have no problem with Virgin charging their customers tiered pricing based on how much those customers used. We'd probably take our business somewhere that offered a better deal, but Virgin would at least be being honest. Virgin, though, seems to want to extort kickbacks from people who aren't it's customers so that they don't have to charge their customers based on usage. Sorry, but no.

Re:Who is Cory Doctorow?

[ASBands (1087159)]

He wears a red cape and blogs from a high-altitude balloon. [xkcd.com]

Re:Who is Cory Doctorow?

[Dr. Cody (554864)]

As an American who hasn't been extremely well-exposed to English pop culture, I cannot say with certainty what the term "wanker" means, but there's a feeling deep inside of me that Cory Doctorow is exactly the person the term was created to describe. He and several more or less pretentious bloggers run the Boing Boing blog, each with their own running obsession--Disney, Tibet, kitsch, Internet memes, etc. This is a spot-on parody of him. [ldopa.net]

Why is Cory Doctorow so famous among geeks?

[spun (1352)]

Look, I don't want to piss you off or anything, and I'm sure Cory is smart, but... what exactly has he done to prove it? I'm really not trying to be facetious.

He dropped out of four universities. He's a blogger. He writes science fiction about as well as Alan Dean Foster. Which is to say, mediocre science fiction. He started Boing Boing. He occasionally writes non fiction articles.

Am I missing something? Cure for cancer, grand unified theory, anything?

I'm sure Cory is both nice and smart, but his importance to a certain set of geeks seems blown way out of proportion to his actual accomplishments.

Re:Why is Cory Doctorow so famous among geeks?

[Mikey-San (582838)]

He started Boing Boing.

Doctorow didn't even start Boing Boing, Mark Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair did. He wasn't even on board when it went from a 'zine to a web site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing#History [wikipedia.org]

Since you brought it up, I'll be specific

[spun (1352)]

First, I like Alan Dean Foster. I was actually being charitable to Cory comparing him to Foster. Foster is a talented word smith with a good sense of pacing and dramatic tension. But he writes fairly pedestrian space opera.

Cory writes about some fairly interesting ideas, but they aren't really that original. And he doesn't know how to flesh them out into an interesting plot. It's almost as if they aren't really his ideas, and he didn't listen that carefully when they were being explained to him. His sense of pacing is a bit off, and his characterizations are flat. Especially women, who come off as caricatures.

I haven't had anything published, but I've read over two thousand speculative fiction books and stories. I've discussed the genre quite extensively. I'm objective enough to recognize a good author even if I don't like their style or subject. I think Cory is a halfway decent author, and I can actually finish his books without throwing them across the room in disgust. If there's no new Bear, Benford, Banks, Baxter, Egan, Gaiman, Gibson, Hamilton, Mieville, Pratchett, Robinson, Rucker, Simmons, or Vinge around, I might consider reading something he wrote.