Verizon: False Advertising

Verizon’s “Unlimited” wireless plan is actually limited:

At the time Verizon didn’t explicitly state that their unlimited service really was limited, but I was looking at the service once again yesterday for someone and decided to see what the terms look like 7–months later. Now they explicitly come out and say that their unlimited plan can only be used for up to 5GB a month otherwise your usage will be considered unacceptable and your service will be terminated

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I definitely understand their reasoning for limiting the service to only 5GB of bandwidth per month, but what boggles my mind is how they can advertise this as unlimited when they explicitly say that any usage over 5GB will cause your account to be terminated?

What boggles the mind is how false advertising like this is acceptable to our politicians.  What happened to the role of politician as consumer advocate?  Has it been farmed out to activists, or has it become universally unacceptable to oppose the universal constituency of all politicians?  A comment in the slashdot article brings home the consequences:

by PopeRatzo (965947) * on Wednesday April 04, @09:50AM (#18604019)

Now think about how a company like Verizon is going to act when there’s no Net Neutrality. How long you think it’s going to take before you are so limited by their TOS that you can ONLY do email and web browsing, and only using their email and approved web sites?

The problem with politicians who don’t call out corporations when they pull stunts like this is they legitimize and grow the power those corporations are abusing.  Should they have the opportunity to abuse further power, who will stop them then?

 

With companies like Verizon opposed to Net Neutrality, it becomes even more vital to fight back.  We should also demand more of our politicians.  They should be standing by us loudly and proudly on these issues.