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Comment by encryptluks2 | Hacker News Reader

The worst offender I've seen is Xfinity/Comcast. Recently cancelled service, never got a notice and multiple incorrect bills after canceling. Anytime I would talk you customer service, they would always say... "If you want to see your correct bill, then you have to download the app."

I continually would have to tell them that I'm not downloading their damn app and that they are big enough that they can have the correct information on their website.

Joe Biden and the Democrats decided to give large ISPs an additional 65 billion dollars with the Infrastructure Plan shortly after this incident.

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You will be happy to learn that under Chair Khan, the FTC is going to prioritize enforcement actions against this specific practice. Only 1 Commissioner issued a dissenting statement. [1]

Comcast has probably already discontinued the practice, as it's been 2 weeks since the policy statement was issued.

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/10/ftc-r...

According to the press release, there are a lot of grey room and no these companies have not magically discontinued their "dark" patterns because of some press release. The only thing that will actually get companies like this to do anything is enforcement, and the government historically lets companies like this off extremely easy and they decide the small penalties are worth the extra they make by doing the thing they are not supposed to be doing.

Is being nice to monopolistic ISPs a left vs. right issue? Neither party seems to have done much to rein them in.

That is a very fair point. The point of mentioning the Infrastructure plan wasn't to target specifically Democrats for being the only one at fault, however they are the ones in power now and many people here pretend like the Democrats are somehow different and actually making significant improvements. I was just pointing out the flawed logic.

And Trump and the Republicans decided to give large ISPs a massive corporate tax break just the prior term, as well as remove a lot of pro consumer regulation re: the FCC, in that case. What's the point of the political commentary?

If I recall, the billion dollar subsidies that were stolen and never used to expand broadband were given out on the Democrats' watch previously, and again this time. So, the whataboutism is not really necessary here. However, if you want to go that route—there is nothing stopping Democrats from declaring Internet a public utility and targeting the ISP monopolies, but that isn't part of their agenda.

I told my cable company that I'm blind. That seemed to fix a similar situation.

Amusingly, two weeks after i get my regular cable bill in the mail, i now get a very large Braille version of it, as well.

At least i think that's what it is.

That isn't a bad idea. However, it is kind of a gamble... like if they don't give you what you want and you have to take them to court because of accessibility or something they'd be quick to point out that you aren't actually blind.

It’s not a problem. There’s an ADA ambulance chaser lawyer here in the Bay. Just point him at the problem and he will rustle up a blind man and sign him up for Comcast and ask for the Braille bill in the way that they will be most likely to refuse. Then he’ll take care of it.

Usually he goes after wheelchair access and stuff but I think he’d jump on this.

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