Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gentle Introduction to AT&T, Patents Deform Lobbyist

Here is a photo that vividly illustrates AT&T's stance on patents. As pointed out yesterday, AT&T seems to be threatening its critics, so maybe it's time to set the record straight and show what AT&T is all about.



Let us have a quick walk through some of AT&T's activities over the past year or so.

“They typically escape unpunished because of their relationships with the government.”To give the gist of it, AT&T censors the Web on behalf of the government [1], throttles or blocks traffic [11, 16], discriminates against Free software [3], slams Google [2], polices the Internet [15], fakes openness [14], attacks net neutrality [6], promotes closed networks [12], locks down closed-source phones, threatens people [8], collaborates with Microsoft on dodgy television technology [4, 5] and with Apple on on controversial [7] bundling [9], which is banned in some countries.

As pointed out yesterday, Comcast, which was funded by Microsoft and has existing deals with Microsoft, is no better. American homes are encouraged to steer away from such abusive companies that break the law in many ways. They typically escape unpunished because of their relationships with the government. The same goes for Microsoft, which is believed to be deep in securities fraud.

Another company which is close to Microsoft is Hewlett-Packard [1, 2, 3]. The Stop Software Patents group has just warned that Hewlett-Packard's former head is now liaising with McCain and advising him on patents, which she's a strong lobbyist for.

But the fact is. A company that wants to invest in patent lawyers can expand the number of patents it holds as it likes. Just reallocate resources to the legal department. And HP under Carly Fiorina did that, increased the number of patents it applied for dramatically. But does it mean more innovation?

[...]

I recently noticed that SUN Microsystems announced to abandon its patent inflation strategy as over-patenting was not worth the investment. It is difficult to assess the strategic value of a mine field and you don't find good data how much profit is generated by patents, which patents generate profit or benefit for the company and which are not worth the investment. In most companies investments in patents follow a rule of thumb. Large holders seek profit with patent portfolios like hunters with a shotgun aim for a flock of birds.


Patent laws are a political thing by their very nature [1, 2], so in order to stop software patents, it is important to know who is who. ___ [1] AT&T admits it censored other bands

It looks like Pearl Jam isn't the only band that has had its politically charged comments bleeped from concerts streamed from AT&T's Blue Room Web site.

[...]

AT&T quickly apologized for the incident and blamed the company that handles the Webcasting for performances on Blue Room.


[2] AT&T slams Google over open-access wireless proposal

AT&T has asked Capitol Hill not to enable an open nationwide wireless spectrum, claiming that Google's lobbying of such a network is a bid by the search giant to obtain broadband airwaves at bargain-basement prices.


[3] AT&T IPTV now coming to your PC

AT&T announced Thursday that its U-verse Internet Protocol television service will now allow subscribers to watch live programming on their PCs.

[...]

Access to the new OnTheGo service is limited to computers running the Windows XP operating system with Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Mozilla's Firefox browser.


[4] AT&T Resumes Rollout for Cable TV

But because the software, provided largely by Microsoft Corp., has never been deployed on such a large scale, assorted glitches have forced AT&T to repeatedly delay and scale back the service rollout even though the required network upgrade remains on pace.


[5] Microsoft blamed for AT&T TV hiccups

Microsoft has a spotty history on the gogglebox. In 1997 it spent about $425m to purchase WebTV Networks but failed to make the much-hyped phenomenon a success.


[6] How AT&T chewed up, and spat out Net Neutrality

In an interview with Business Week in October 2005, Whitacre said he thought taking over BellSouth would be rejected by the FCC. He also made another memorable comment that began the process which culminated in the FCC's approval in December.


[7] Customers can sue AT&T, after all

A federal court in San Francisco has decided that AT&T's wireless contract is "unconscionable".


[8] IPhone Unlock Delayed After AT&T's 'Friendly Advice

Fear of litigation has led to an indefinite delay in the planned Saturday release of software to unlock Apple Inc.'s iPhone.

John McLaughlin, founder of Uniquephones, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said Saturday that he received a phone call about 3 a.m. Saturday local time from a man claiming to be from O'Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm, calling on behalf of AT&T. The firm has worked with Apple in the past.

The man informed McLaughlin that if he posted the unlock code, he could be sued for copyright infringement and for dissemination of Apple's intellectual property (IP).


[9] iPhone Freed From AT&T, Twice

The company will be selling licenses to the hack, minimum quantity 500, at a price not yet announced. These hacks are much bigger news for those outside America. Expect to see an industry spring up to meet European (and Asian?) demand for freed iPhones.


[10] AT&T Welcomes Programmers for All Phones Except the iPhone

I’m still trying to understand why Apple would go to such extremes to keep people from writing programs that run on the iPhone.


[11] AT&T takes another step towards filtered network with investment in Vobile

AT&T announced earlier this year that was planning to introduce content filtering of some sort for all video passing across its network. Exactly what AT&T was thinking remained unclear: would the company truly attempt to reassemble the fragments of peer-to-peer transmissions, then extract video from all sorts of different codecs, then attempt to match it-in real time-to some database of copyrighted works? Would such a thing even be possible?


[12] Hey, AT&T, What's the Value of a Closed Network Again?

Closed networks, its proponents maintain, offer a trade-off. Individuals or outside developers can't make any changes or improvements to it. But since the network and its applications are controlled at a single source, individuals are supposed to get an easier experince in which they don't have to think about the network, just what they're doing on it. Trust the network.


[13] When Networks Collide: AT&T suddenly doesn't like Apple so much.

What I believe is troubling the relationship between AT&T and Apple is the upcoming auction for 700-MHz wireless spectrum and AT&T's discovery that -- as I have predicted for weeks -- Apple will be joining Google in bidding. AT&T thought its five-year "exclusive" iPhone agreement with Apple would have precluded such a bid, but that just shows how poorly Randall Stephenson understood Steve Jobs. Steve always hurts his friends to see how much they really love him, so AT&T probably should have expected this kind of corporate body blow.


[14] How to Jump on the Open Access Bandwagon By Doing Absolutely Nothing

Earlier this morning, the interweb was aflutter with various reports that AT&T had, in the words of a USA Today article, "flung open its network" to any and all devices. Problem was, this revelation was based solely on the aforementioned article, and the assumption many had (and still seem to have) was that AT&T had in fact changed its network policy in some way. As many have noticed, nothing in fact has changed, other than the fact that AT&T got a healthy dose of positive press out of the misrepresentation.


[15] Should AT&T police the Internet?

A decade after the government said that AT&T and other service providers don't have to police their networks for pirated content, the telecommunications giant is voluntarily looking for ways to play traffic cop.


[16] AT&T and Other I.S.P.'s May Be Getting Ready to Filter

For the last 15 years, Internet service providers have acted - to use an old cliche - as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet.

But I.S.P.'s may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop.

At a small panel discussion about digital piracy at NBC's booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and the telecom giant AT&T said discussed whether the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually
Participation in Cancel Culture Detrimental to One's Career
A cautionary tale
Passion Wins
we've increased the number of birds we feed to 100+
How Solderpunk and Sean Conner Started Gemini Protocol (and, Collectively, Geminispace) Back in 2019
Based on the "official" history
Arduino is Now a Patent Bully (Qualcomm)
Qualcomm has just bought Arduino
Many Years of Microsoft Cancellations and Faked (Acquired) Revenue "Growth"
XBox is basically the "next Skype"
The Comment TheLayoff.com Has Just Censored for Criticising a Ridiculous Puff Piece of IBM Management
If comments get censored for their "style" rather than their substance, then society will be worse off
The Power of Writing Down Facts
The more we write and publish, the more people will know what happened
Microsoft's Non-Denying Denial About XBox's Death is Already Being Shattered to Pieces
Like Microsoft's 'open' 'hey hi', heralding meaningless non-committing agreements with AMD is little more than vapourware
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Joins the Slopfarms Club
Slopfarms gonna slop
Links 07/10/2025: Privacy at Risk, GAFAM Remains Off the Hook
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Modern Retro Console Idea and Batch vs Bash
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: International Criminal Court (ICC) Convicts Ali Kushayb; Moroccan Imprisoned for 'Offensive' Shirt
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: EU' Chat Control is Back, US Cracks Down on Democracy
Links for the day
Techrights Pursues Justice and Truth Because, Without Those, Society Descends Into Chaos
most people reject dogma and pseudoscience
Upcoming Talks by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Göteborg, and Rome
Join with him and share the software
Something Bad is Happening in the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
The latest OSI blog post is from a Microsoft operative and a few weeks ago the Executive Director left
TLS 1.3 Dominates Geminispace (99% of Known Capsules)
it's nowadays safe to assume almost every capsule can handle TLS 1.3
Why soylentnews.org Has Been Having Technical Difficulties Lately
The network has been going up and down quite a lot this past week
A Statement Against Violence
The facts are on our side
They've Run Out of Things to Rebrand or Label as "AI"
The next few years will be interesting because if Microsoft lays off tens of thousands of workers each year, there won't be much left except mountains of debt and dying brands
The Register MS is Still Being Paid to Participate in the "AI" Ponzi Scheme Which Will Crash the Economy
The Register MS is hoping to get lucky by tricking people into a scam
Richard Stallman Confirms His Talk in Göteborg This Coming Friday
"The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state"
Most of the "Linux" Results This Morning in Google News Are LLM Slop From the Same Slopfarm, Plagiarising Phoronix
The main question is, does Google even care at this point?
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Civil War and "Goodbye Web"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 06, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 06, 2025