--On Wednesday, 17 August, 2005 18:13 +0200 Roland Bless
<bless@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Brian,
>
>> You can ask some pointed questions using RFC 4084 ("exactly
>> which of these descriptions applies to your service, and
>> please show
>
> Thanks for a pointer to that BCP...
>
>> me in the contract where you are allowed to change your
>> service without notice"). But I suspect that even free
>> copies of
>
> Unfortunately they have a passage in their general terms and
> conditions which explictly allows them to place their web
> portal as starting page...however, they announced a new
> feature, but one could not infer from that statement that they
> are really redirecting HTTP requests... (for the interested
> reader who is able to read german:
> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/62869)
Roland,
It is impossible to close every loophole, or to prohibit every
bad behavior. Certainly it is impossible to do so without
making a document like RFC 4084 so long and complex that no one
would read it. However, there is a huge difference between
"place their portal as starting page" and "intercept every HTTP
request and divert it to where they want to". The ordinary
interpretation of the former would mean doing something like
what the WiFi public hotspot folk do, i.e., to intercept your
_first_ URL in some "session" in order to display their page,
set up accounting information, etc. But, after that, they
generally leave you alone.
This is much more intrusive. From your description and that in
the article, it would seem that they are using the "portal"
story as an excuse to force you into a private service, causing
increased costs in terms of the time it takes you to accomplish
anything, etc.
FWIW, I think Steve Bellovin's advice is wise -- publicity, loud
public protests, appeals to regulators if there are _any_
pressures that prevent you from changing suppliers, etc. might
be effective and are worth trying.
john
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