| Telus Whines | |
The Edmonton Journal, 11/97Tuesday's "Journal" carried a letter to the editor which implied that customers of Telus' PLAnet Internet access service are subject to an unreasonable limitation of their online rights.
I'd like to have the opportunity to explain the intent behind the "legalese" of our account agreement. Telus PLAnet is Alberta's largest Internet service provider with almost 70,000 customers, and we take our responsibility to the public very seriously.
Before someone becomes a Telus PLAnet customer, they agree to certain terms of use specified in our account agreement.
The agreement is designed to prevent illegal uses of the Internet (such as distributing child pornography) or abuses (such as spamming) which would degrade the service of other customers.
If for some reason they do not find the terms of use agreeable, they don't have to buy our service. This is standard industry practice, and our user agreement is comparable to that of large international Internet service providers.
The conditions in Telus PLAnet's account agreement are largely aimed at protecting our ability to continue offering service to our other customers in the event that one customer abuses our system.
Telus has absolutely no interest in copying, distributing or publishing any of our customers' websites or programming.
There is one circumstance under which we might block access to a customer's homepage -- if it contains obviously illegal material such as images of child pornography or bestiality. Telus does not routinely monitor or censor customer e-mail or websites, but such cases are sometimes reported to us, and the account agreement gives us the ability to deal with them.
I believe that our customers recognize that our account agreement was created so that Telus PLANet can offer them the best possible Internet access service.
Greg Graham,
Telus PLAnet Marketing Manager
|