Fairpoint Pledges To Violate Net Neutrality 249
wytcld writes "Fairpoint Communications, which has taken over Verizon's landline business in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, has announced that on February 6, 'AOL, Yahoo! and MSN subscribers will continue to have access to content but will no longer be able to access their e-mail through the third-party Web site. Instead, Yahoo! and other third-party e-mail will be accessed directly at the MyFairPoint.net portal.' Since Verizon spun off its lines to Fairpoint in a maneuver that got debt off of Verizon's balance sheets by saddling Fairpoint with it, there was concern by the public service boards of the three states about how Fairpoint would deal with that debt. Fairpoint's profit plan: force all Webmail users through Fairpoint's portal, by blocking all direct access to Webmail portals other than its own. Will Fairpoint's own search engine portal be next? What can stop them?"
Good thing (Score:5, Interesting)
So who sues them first? (Score:3, Interesting)
...why didn't I see Gmail on their list?
Re:(un)Fairpoint's Profit Plan (Score:2, Interesting)
...pretty much, yeah.
Which is why it took about exactly one encounter with Fairpoint customer dissservice for us to completely dump them as any kind of service provider whatsover and switch everything over to our cable provider.
Re:This wont effect me at all. (Score:2, Interesting)
They're *the* local telephone company across multiple states. They have no direct competitors in that market.
I suppose cellular providers and cable providers will try to take advantage of this, but cellphonscht kshcht bzsakt shchtkischt rural kschischt bzczoscht, and cable providers only offer internet and maybe VOIP (err, and television if you're into that), which in the general case are not necessarily very good substitutes for an actual phone line.
Having said that, the fact that Fairpoint is a spinoff from Verizon makes me very glad I stopped doing business with Verizon a couple of years ago. This is a cut and dry case of abusing a monopoly in one market (phone lines) to elbow your way into (and competitors out of) another market (email), so hopefully they'll get the book thrown at them good and hard. Full-blown net neutrality may not even be necessary in this particular case; standard antitrust regulation should be good enough, I would think. (But IANAL,ATINLA.)
Re:what can stop them (Score:5, Interesting)
How many of their customers are in areas with only one non dialup provider?
I doubt this will last though, Fairpoint isn't big enough to stand up against MSFT's legal department, and the Tier 1 contract probably requires them to be a neutral provider.
Re:I live in Vermont and have Fairpoint (Score:4, Interesting)
Yahoo!, AOL and MSN or Other Third-Party Portal Users
On Jan 31, 2009, you'll still have access to Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN content, but you'll no longer be able to access your email directly through the third-party portal. Instead, you'll now have access to the new MyFairPoint.net portal.
If you were using the VERIZON third-party portal to access your email that is located at Yahoo!, AOL and/or MSN ... since you are no longer a customer of VERIZON, and instead are now a customer of FAIRPOINT, third-party access mechanism is now through FAIRPOINT's service. In other words, Fairpoint is going to be providing a similar kind of service that Verizon did.
I'm sure there will be problems for people with email addresses "@verizon.net". There should not be problems for people using other email addresses. I see nothing in this that says people cannot go to Yahoo!, AOL, or MSN directly for email address originally established through those providers (e.g. youremailaddress@aol.com). If such email accounts were previously restricted such that they could ONLY be accessed via the VERIZON web site, I could understand them being similarly restricted to the FAIRPOINT website. But as for people having their email addresses changed, I can't see that affecting anyone other than those who have an "@verizon.net" address.
FairPoint Blocking Access to Web Portals (Score:2, Interesting)
Hello:
What is the source of the quote "Fairpoint's profit plan: force all Webmail users through Fairpoint's portal, by blocking all direct access to Webmail portals other than its own." This is flat out incorrect. No where in the communication did it state that FairPoint would block access to other portals. Rather the point was that FairPoint, unlike Verizon, is not going to ask a user to select a co-branded portal at the time they sign up. These co-branded portals included MSN, AOL, and Yahoo! A Verizon customer could always just select the Verizon Central portal. FairPoint, like more traditional ISPs, will have their own portal which provides access to their web mail client and other services such as account maintenance. A user is free to head to any and all other web sites they desire to visit, can POP their email, etc. So please check the facts before posting some half baked comment.