"Jim Henson made this film in 1963 for The Bell System. Specifically, it was made for an elite seminar given for business owners, on the then-brand-new topic — Data Communications." - SLYT, from
AT&T's Archives YouTube channel.
posted by Slap*Happy
on Jan 26, 2012 -
8 comments
Third, class arbitration greatly increases risks to defendants. Informal procedures do of course have a cost: The absence of multilayered review makes it more likely that errors will go uncorrected. Defendants are willing to accept the costs of these errors in arbitration, since their impact is limited to the size of individual disputes, and presumably outweighed by savings from avoiding the courts. But when damages allegedly owed to tens of thousands of potential claimants are aggregated and decided at once, the risk of an error will often become unacceptable. Faced with even a small chance of a devastating loss, defendants will be pressured into settling questionable claims.
—
Justice Scalia delivers the opinion of the Court, and a knife in the back of class-action suits. [more inside]
posted by kipmanley
on Apr 27, 2011 -
107 comments
to gather information about Americans' phone records --
... the NSA had approached the company (Qwest) about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans' phone records.
...Nacchio's account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 attacks have been cited by the government as the main impetus for its warrantless surveillance efforts. ... -- The Administration's crimes and illegal spying on all of us and Quest's punishment for not going along with their plans.
posted by amberglow
on Oct 13, 2007 -
76 comments
Letter to [AT&T CEO] Ed Whitacre. "Perhaps the generous compensation package is in appreciation of all the fine lobbying efforts your team has conducted in Washington to preserve the incumbent footprint and defend yourself against innovation. If that is indeed the rationale for your pay package, then you deserve it. AT&T has shown true excellence in lobbying. Your team knows how to preserve the system.
Here's what I really think of this pay package: It's a farce. It's a symbol that the pure arrogance and imperial management style of incumbent telcos is here to say. It's proof that your company is focused more on maintaining the status quo and maximizing executive pay, than on innovation and the creation of shareholder value."
posted by ZenMasterThis
on May 4, 2007 -
49 comments
Privacy Schmivacy On the eve of its hearing on
charges that it assisted in the government’s illegal spying on millions of Americans, AT&T, the largest phone company in the United States, has changed its privacy policy to clearly establish its
ownership of its customers’ personal account information.
In its revised
policy, AT&T makes it clear that “while your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
Oh, really?
posted by squirrel
on Jun 22, 2006 -
54 comments
Wired News has obtained a copy of a file detailing AT&T's involvement with the NSA that was sealed in the EFF's class-action lawsuit against AT&T. At 2AM EST this morning they have
published that file on their site for anyone to download
(this is the fixed link, the one on Wired is currently broken).
[via]
posted by Ryvar
on May 22, 2006 -
67 comments
Bush administration signals intent to invoke the obscure
state secrets privilege in order to stop the
EFF lawsuit against
AT&T, (previously discussed
here) for providing the NSA direct access
all 312 terabytes of its customers' telephone and internet traffic since 2001, (including those Good Vibrations charges you racked up).
In a nutshell, according to legal experts, invoking the privilege kills the judicial process dead: the courthouse doors are closed, and there's nothing but grownup stuff to see here; move along, kids.
posted by squirrel
on May 2, 2006 -
51 comments
AT&T Text to Spech put out by AT&T labs is interesting to play around with. Select your language and accent and then go wild. You can even translate if you select the right accent.
posted by tozturk
on May 7, 2005 -
34 comments
So the banner ad turned 10 a few days ago, according to
dabitch, but what I find more fascinating is that its first use was in connection with all those AT&T "
You Will" television commercials from the early '90s. Here, collected on one page, for your consideration, are those ads. As
Frau Farbissina would screech: "Lies.
ALL LIES!" Well, perhaps AT&T didn't lie to us about
all their predictions, but I'm still waiting for my "intelligent assistant" who'll work on those playoff tickets for me. How many predictions did they make that came true can
you find here?
posted by WolfDaddy
on Oct 31, 2004 -
21 comments
Verizon goes Vonage? ATT, announced this week that it's giving up on residential phone service. And here, from the look of it, Verizon is starting to offer what I believe is Internet-based phone service. Is the Internet the future of phone?
posted by ParisParamus
on Jul 24, 2004 -
27 comments
