Technology

AT T will pay $60 million over fake unlimited data -lsquo;bait and switch scam-

AT-T is being punished at last for its shady claims of plans with &unlimited data& but were in reality nothing of the kind: The company has agreed to a $60 million settlement with the FTC, which has pursued the case for years. Some 3.5 million affected customers can expect partial refunds — little more than pocket money, but itsomething.

The complaint was filed almost exactly five years ago, after customer complaints from previous years had piled up. AT-T, after offering truly unlimited data plans for a few years, made changes to how the plans worked but not to how they were advertising. Starting in 2011, the company began throttling to a fraction of the speed they normally got customers with &unlimited data& who hit data caps. We&re talking kilobits here.

Naturally thatnot quite in line with the &unlimited& claims, and some people took AT-T and others to court early on over it. But the FTC2014 complaint indicated that the feds were taking this seriously.

Because the complaint was so obviously true, AT-T attempted to thwart it via process, claiming that the net neutrality rules adopted in 2015 moved the authority to regulate mobile carriers from the FTC to the FCC, retroactively mooting the case. They pursued this ridiculous argument until last year, when a federal court slapped it down and the FTCprocess was allowed to continue unimpeded. And here we are 18 months later with a $60 million settlement.

Court rules against AT-T, closing FTC regulation loophole

&AT-Tbait-and-switch scam is a good window into the many harms that result from dominant companies operating without the discipline of meaningful competition,& said FTC Chairman Rohit Chopra in a spicy statement accompanying the announcement. &Their market power, financial resources, and one-sided information gives them license to ignore their own contractual obligations while aggressively enforcing every little clause in the fine print. Consumers can accept the bad deal, walk away, or fight it, but each choice carries a cost, with dominant firms prevailing almost every time.&

Although $60 million is a drop in the bucket for a company the size of AT-T, the FTC action and other pressure also put executives on warning for prioritizing profits over customers with scams like this one.

&The company could have upheld its obligations to its customers by making the right infrastructure investments,& Chopra continued. &It certainly had the money to do so. In 2012, as the company boasted to investors that customers were fleeing its unlimited plan for tiered plans, it spent more on share buybacks than it invested in its wireless network. The bottom line is that AT-T fleeced its customers to enrich its executives and its investors.&

Unfortunately those customers will remain fleeced, as there are some 3.5 million of them and only $60 million to distribute. This will be divided between current and former AT-T customers as follows, according to the proposed settlement:

  • $7.5 million to be split by current AT-T customers who experienced throttling to 128 kbps
  • $29.7 million to be split by current AT-T customers who experienced throttling to 256 or 512 kbps
  • $6.3 million to be split by former AT-T customers who experienced throttling to 128 kbps
  • $16.5 million to be split by former AT-T customers who experienced throttling to 256 or 512 kbps

All this will be done &pro rata,& so if you were an early adopter who got throttled to 128 kbps every month of your year-long contract, you&ll get a bigger share than someone who only went over once and got throttled to 512 kbps.

Thereno need to fill anything out or submit a claim; if you&re currently an AT-T customer, you&ll get a bill credit, and if you&re a former customer you should get a check in the mail.

Naturally AT-T is barred from pulling anything like this again: The company can&t claim something is &unlimited& without prominent disclosure of the actual limitations on the service.

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Cortana can now read emails out loud in Outlook for iOS

Microsoft is pushing ahead with plans to position Cortana as a personal productivity assistant in the office with new features announced at Ignite this week.

While Cortana was initially launched as a consumer voice assistant to compete with the likes of Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, Microsoft has increasingly targeted it for duties in its portfolio of productivity tools. With Play My Emails in Outlook for iOS, Cortana can now read emails aloud to users and update them on their work schedule, Microsoft said, offering a hands-free way to catch up on emails while on the go.

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Amazon unveils biggest ever Black Friday sale - and it starts a week early
Amazon has announced when its Black Friday 2019 dates will be - and there's set to be eight days of solid deals, all starting a week before Black Friday on the 22nd November
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After the epic draw they fought out in the the boxing ring last year, KSI and Logan Paul are stepping back into the squared circle to see who truly deserves to be crowned the YouTube king of boxing. Don't want to miss any of the action? Read on to find out how to watch a KSI vs Logan Paul live stream - no matter where in the world you are.

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Microsoft Teams gets private channels, email integration with Outlook

Microsoft Teams users can now converse with colleagues privately after the long-awaited introduction of private channels & one of a variety of updates announced by Microsoft at its Ignite conference in Orlando, Fla. this week. The company also highlighted enhanced integration with Outlook and a multi-window feature.

Private channels have been in high demand from Teams users, and are the most requested feature on the Microsoft User Voice feedback page for Teams. The feature had been proposed by Microsoft before the launch of Teams in 2017, with a preview announced earlier this year.

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Prepare for the CompTIA certification exams with this $69 training bundle

No modern tech company can operate without a capable IT department, and as new companies launch each year, the demand for IT professionals will continue to grow. However, IT professionals must earn their certifications first, and CompTIA certifications are among the most versatile because they&re vendor-neutral. If you&re interested in earning a CompTIA certification, you can prepare with this $69 training bundle.

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