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Toothless American consumer watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission, today agreed to let AT&T settle a five-year battle over phony "unlimited data" promises for just $60m. That's $40m less than expected, and less than one day of annual profit for the telco giant.
The agreement [PDF] lets AT&T claim it did nothing wrong; the settlement, as ever, comes with no admittance of guilt. The FTC's official announcement repeatedly stresses the fact that AT&T throttled millions of customers' mobile broadband access despite selling them "unlimited data" plans, are mere "allegations."
The settlement was agreed to by four of the five FTC commissioners, with Rebecca Kelly Slaughter recusing herself for some unknown reason. Another commissioner, Rohit Chopra, made it clear that he was not happy about the deal, despite agreeing to it.
In a statement [PDF], Chopra called AT&T's actions a "scam," "scandal," and "massive fraud," and noted he "would have liked to see AT&T pay more," but recognized "the risks and resources associated with litigation." He concluded: "The bottom line is that AT&T fleeced its customers to enrich its executives and its investors."
The original FTC complaint was filed in 2014 after it received numerous gripes from AT&T customers that their phones' mobile internet download speeds had slowed to a crawl despite being on "unlimited" data plans. It turned out that after people had fetched 2 to 3GB of information each month, AT&T simply throttled their accounts, making web browsing difficult and video streaming near-impossible.
Also at Forbes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:55PM (10 children)
Nobody notices the effects of throttling because Soylentils are old people who are nostalgic about dialup and SoylentNews uses a 1990s era codebase unmodified.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday November 06 2019, @01:58PM (4 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:04PM
Don’t hit me with your modem!
https://dilbert.com/strip/2010-12-23 [dilbert.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @07:07PM (1 child)
Defect report: Not enough white space. Not enough room for advertisers. Ease of seeing conversation thread trees makes in harder for new threads to get attention.
May I suggest you beta a new UI?
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Wednesday November 06 2019, @11:33PM
Too soon dude, too soon!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 06 2019, @10:25PM
Engineer's motto: If it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:08PM (1 child)
by gum
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 06 2019, @10:26PM
buy gum?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:34PM
Don't like it...go roll your own. Just don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday November 06 2019, @07:23PM
You forgot to include "ok boomer".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @09:59PM
ok millenial.