Unethical ATTempts

Six or seven years ago, when ATT was in the cable business and held the contract for San Francisco, I switched my telephone, television and Internet services to a small company named RCN; the company had won approval from the city of San Francisco to begin building a fiber optic network and my neighborhood was one of the first finished. At first, I balked at making the switch until RCN, in addition to offering a one-month free trial, guaranteed that they would take care of the details involved in changing service providers and, if I chose not to stay with the company after one month, they would switch everything back; I wouldn't have to do a thing, not even make a single phone call. I signed a contract giving them the authority to act on my behalf and have been with RCN ever since.
About three months after making the switch, I began to receive threatening letters from ATT demanding payment for the three months I had been with RCN. I'll skip the details of the hours of pull-your-hair-out-want-to-scream-and-break-something frustration I spent on the phone trying to sort the situation out; the dispute came to a stalemate during a phone call between customer service supervisors from both companies, with, unbeknownst to ATT, me silently listening. Silent, that is, until I became so outraged by ATT"s attitude that I had to say something. It ended when I managed to get the ATT supervisor to admit that ATT did not care that RCN had proof that I was an RCN customer during the disputed time and that I did not receive any services at all from ATT and that as far as ATT was concerned, I owed them and they would continue to pursue payment.
What do you do when a corporation is so entrenched in the market and so large that it feels entitled to abuse, or as I prefer to view it, attempt to extort consumers with impunity? Not much, but I vowed to remember the outrage and never to do business with ATT again. I couple years later, I received a bill for $75 from ATT thanking me for opening an account and welcoming me to the ATT family. The charge was for a one minute call to the Cayman Islands using the ATT network. ATT claimed that my computer had made the call, despite the fact that I did not have a dial up modem. This time the customer service agent said that ATT would graciously forgive the debt this one time, but in the future I would be held responsible for all charges; I told the agent that she should make a note that I do not and will not ever do business with ATT and that they should block me from accessing any of their networks. If they fail to do so, they are responsible for all charges, not me. Of course, she sputtered and flailed about for a response, but corporations are unable to cope with alternative paradigms, no matter how reasonable or logical, and they certainly don't empower their customer service employees to operate outside the approved script.
The purpose of sharing these stories is that ATT is one of the companies that is attempting to use technology to control and configure the Internet in such a way as to best exploit it for maximum profit; and they don't care how it affects others with a stake or an interest in the future of the Internet. Whether or not, and to what extent, these corporate interests will be allowed a priority claim to the Internet for private commercial use in order to enrich private interests is one issue that falls under the term Net Neutrality. I've not forgotten the outrageous treatment I have received from ATT and have gotten involved with some grassroots groups fighting corporate attempt to appropriate the Internet for private gain. Check out freepress.net and savetheinternet.

Save the Internet, Save the World!