brians wrote:
> Congress will be voting (in less than two weeks) to decide whether or not
> telephone companies
> can levy a charge on your phone bill equal to a long distance call EACH
> time you access the Internet.
Thanks for thinking of us, but this is actually a hoax... Check out
http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa012099.htm?pid=2733&cob=home
for details...
Basically, anything and everything that says "pass this on to all of your
friends" is a hoax, unfortunately.
-Dave
*************
Internet Access Rumor Won't Go Away
Dateline: 01/20/99
Even though it's been debunked by just about everybody, the rumor rages
on via forwarded email alerts: the U.S. government, we are told, is on the
verge of enacting legislation that will raise our Internet access costs by
allowing calls to ISPs to be charged at long-distance (i.e., per-minute)
rates.
The rumor is false, as I will explain shortly.
It is nonetheless popular, exemplifying a genre of Internet folklore dating
back to the " modem tax" legend of the early '90s. The rumor then was that
the FCC was about to approve a surcharge on all phone lines connected
to computer modems. A grassroots email campaign resulted in a flood of
protests to the FCC, in spite of the fact that it had no such ruling under
consideration.
In similar fashion, the latest rumor has generated hundreds of thousands of
email complaints from "well-meaning but misinformed people" over the
past two years, says the FCC.
Much like the issue of computer security, which has given rise to a body of
lore including virus hoaxes, hacker alerts, and rumors of privacy invasion,
low-cost access is and will likely always be a "hot button" topic among
Internet users, hence fertile ground for rumormongers. False rumors often
paint a true picture of a community's deep-seated fears and concerns.
Here's a typical email rendering of the current one:
Date: Tuesday, January 05, 1999 7:50 PM
Subject: INPORTANT!!! PLEASE READ!!!!!!
THIS IS NO JOKE !!!
CNN stated that the Government would in two weeks
time decide to allow or not allow a Charge to
your phone bill equal to a long distance call
each time you access the internet.
The address is
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Please visit the address above and fill out the
necessary form! This is not a joke....but REAL.
We all were aware that the Government has been
pressured by the telephone companies to consider
such a charge and now it's reality.....
If EACH one of us, forward this message on to
others in a hurry, we may be able to prevent this
injustice from happening!
The irony is that similar messages warning that the government will make a
decision "in two weeks" have been circulating since early November, more
than two months ago.
The earliest of these coincides with news reports about a ruling under
consideration by the FCC (not Congress) pertaining to "reciprocal
compensation" arrangements between local telephone companies. The
ruling (still pending at this writing) will decide whether calls to ISPs
should
be regarded as interstate transactions, since Internet traffic is not,
strictly
speaking, local. It would only affect the rates phone companies charge
each other for the use of local lines to complete such calls. (See the FCC
Fact Sheet on this issue for a more thorough explanation.)
In some quarters, including news organizations such as CNN, this was
misinterpreted as having an impact on the rates phone companies charge
ISPs, and thus on consumer access fees. As CNN ominously reported on
November 7, "The cost of going online could go up significantly if the
Federal Communications Commission decides that dialing your local
Internet provider is a long-distance call."
It was an erroneous assumption. FCC chairman William Kennard had
announced the opposite just the day before: "The FCC has repeatedly
stated for the past decade and is stating again today that it is NOT
repealing the ISP exemption that [prevents] Internet service providers from
paying per-minute charges to local telephone companies."
Unfortunately, the rumor was well underway. Even now, in spite of plenty
of information to the contrary on this site and elsewhere, people persist in
believing the email alerts and continue forwarding them hither and yon with
righteous indignation.
Two days ago, the Arizona Republic reported that Congressman Ed
Pastor had received no fewer than 85 messages of protest since
November, the bulk of them during the past two weeks. Pastor's office
responds to the protests by kindly denying the rumor and handing out the
address of the FCC Web page listed above. Other members of Congress
are doing the same, and likely will be for quite some time to come.
"Internet misinformation resembles one of those fires that start up in huge
piles of tires," observed the author of the Arizona Republic article. "You
can knock them back, but never really put them out."
The FCC can vouch for that. Come to think of it, so can I.
For more information, see:
No Consumer Per-Minute Charges to Access ISPs
Dec. '98 Fact Sheet from the FCC
FCC Chairman's Statement
Nov. 11 speech to Regulatory Commissioners
FCC Again Says It Won't Tax Internet
Reuters news coverage, Nov. 7, 1998
Internet Access Fees (Again?) (NOT!)
David Spalding's in-depth 'Hoax du Jour' feature
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