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I sincerely wish that any company that advertised unlimited and didn't actually allow unlimited X was penalized because it is straight up false advertising. un

I sincerely wish that any company that advertised unlimited and didn't actually allow unlimited X was penalized because it is straight up false advertising. unlimited data (but after 5tb we throttle you to 100kpbs) is not unlimited it is 5tb + 100k * 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 Google was unlimited with 5 users. Then they rug pulled and it was "as much as you need" + "you can request increases every 3 months". then prices went way up. now its "you are only allowed 3 increases" its fine to have limits but businesses should be forced to disclose them upfront

leetrout 2y ago
Same for unlimited vacation.
cogman10 2y ago
Yup. This should be considered bait and switch. It's fraud plain and simple and they should be severely penalized for lying about the services because "it's too expensive".
- pockybum522 2y ago
  I would love to see this happen. How do we actually bring a class action or some other thing that effectively means they can't do this anymore?
  - cogman10 2y ago
    This is something that should be under the purview of an agency like the FTC. If you are affected by this you could file a complaint with them.
  - vedmed 2y ago
    Why do you need a class action lawsuit? Simply sue the company in small claims court. Why give money to useless lawyer? You can put more money in your own pocket.
    - acdha 2y ago
      $5k isn’t going to get Google to stop lying. A class action settlement might.
    - atif089 2y ago
      OP was storing 400TB of data. I think Google charges like $100 / 2 TB so that's $20,000 /yr. Wondering if that would go outside small claims since small claims is up to €5000
derefr 2y ago
The type of marketer or program manager who comes up with an “unlimited” offering usually has a very limited imagination for exactly how much of something a customer could really use. These types usually have no sense for what limits their business could actually handle, because none of their current customers are using their service to anything approaching its operational capacity. And they probably don’t have any SREs to ask for stress-test data, either. So “unlimited” for them, just means “use it like everyone has already been using it and it’ll be flat-rate instead of PAYGO. Or go wild and use 10x or 100x that.” It doesn’t even occur to them that it’s possible that someone could use e.g. 10000x existing usage.
tpmoney 2y ago
Part of the problem is the definition has drifted, and the cell carriers want to (understandably) keep using the old definition, and the tech geeks (understandably) want the new one. When "unlimited" data became a thing, it was in a world where data for your phone was sold in bundles of hundreds of MB, and when you hit your cap, you had no more data at all, or were charged quite a bit of money per extra MB. In that world, it was possible to turn a $60 phone bill into a $600 phone bill doing less data traffic in a month than most smart phone users will use in a day. And so in that world, "unlimited" data was clearly and well understood to mean "no hard cutoff and no overage charges". Maybe "unmetered" would have been a better term, but "unlimited" was something of a term of art already in the cell industry as applied to voice minutes (see "unlimited nights and weekends") and to text messages, where in both of those cases this was also understood to refer to a no hard cutoff or overage charges. For most consumers, the "limits" of their cell service has always been the line before they had to start paying more. And a throttled data pipe is well within that understanding.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  If it's always a certain speed, that's pretty reasonable. If the speed drops a lot after a certain number of bytes, calling that unlimited is deceptive. And that behavior is not unmetered either.
  - tpmoney 2y ago
    So what word should they use for such a plan that distinguishes it from the plans where going over your allocated data amount starts racking up data charges at $1 / MB? And would you really be satisfied if the company advertised the plans as "unlimited 3G data with 5G SpeedBoost™ for the first 50GB"? After all, if it's "always" 3G then it's always a certain speed, and surely its not deceptive to give better service than paid for from time to time.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      That would be a fine description for it. I approve of this answer for your question of how to word it. Why do you think I wouldn't be satisfied? The big problem is that the 50GB cutoff is hidden. A cutoff like that is better than a hidden extra charge, but not a lot better. Also, if they had to directly mention the speed they probably would use 3G and that would be a big improvement over the status quo where lots of carriers go down to 256kbps or 128kbps. > surely its not deceptive to give better service than paid for from time to time It's fine as long as you don't give a false impression to someone trying the service. Calling out the 50GB as a different speed avoids that pretty well.
cam_l 2y ago
> any company that advertised unlimited and didn't actually allow unlimited X was penalized This pretty much happens in Australia. Almost every telco had been fined by the ACCC for some version of this. They keep trying it though, every couple of years. Just like the airlines and ticket companies keep trying drip pricing, and keep getting caught and warned or fined. The incentives are just too much to stop them. We need a better stick.
- pennomi 2y ago
  The better stick is escalating fines for repeat offenses. I’m fine letting a company off easy for their first offense. But that second one they should know better.
  - cam_l 2y ago
    Sure, but I kind of think fines might be the wrong kind of disincentive for businesses. This breeds a cost-of-doing-business mentality. Lying to customers and breaking the law should be existentially dangerous to them. Perhaps some of the many privileges we afford big businesses should be clawed back once they show they are not trustworthy. Things which make it more difficult for the executives to do their jobs, easier for regulators to catch them if they do it again, and easier for the competitors to eat their lunch. Jail time for egregious offences is not a bad idea either. In AU, in the lead up to passing a bill to make wage theft a criminal offence, a lot of big companies magically reimbursed workers tens of millions of dollars for 'accidental' underpayment going back 10yrs or more. All of a sudden it wasn't just other peoples money they were playing with.
    - emacsen 2y ago
      I agree with you, and I'd like to offer two additional thoughts. Firstly, I believe that one of the reasons these large companies have moved to arbitration is that it lets them get away with more, even if they lose. If they lose, they only lose money, but the case is sealed, and the judge can't issue an injunction. If it goes to court, a judge can award more than just money- they can order the business to stop making certain claims. If they continue despite the order, they could be found in contempt of court, and that would be serious. Secondly, I believe that only criminal liability when there is willful misconduct will deter white collar criminals. In practice, that means if a company does something bad, their CEO or other board members may go to jail. I believe this could be a huge deterrent.
compsciphd 2y ago
they generally did disclose them. I think what you're arguing is that they shouldn't be allowed to ever change the terms, even with significant warning. One should view it as a monthly (even for those that paid yearly) recurring contract. Just like you can opt out of the contract at the end of each contract term, so can google (they just have to define what that means for those that got a discount by paying a year up front). Every month, the contract can change and the users can say its no longer valuable to them. Its not fundamentally different than those who "buy" licensed DRM content in the cloud (which can go away). We like to say its not buying, you're just "long term" renting. Guess what, that's exactly what this is, except that's the entire point here, to not buy and simply rent, so there should be no confusion.
- katbyte 2y ago
  I’m even ok with them changing terms, things happen. I just think companies should not be allowed to say “unlimited” unless it is actually 100% unlimited
  - compsciphd 2y ago
    In practice, it was unlimited before the original change. many people had 100s of TBs and never had any issue until the policy change requiring them to move to a different product that clearly had a limit stated.

leetrout 2y ago

Same for unlimited vacation.

cogman10 2y ago

Yup. This should be considered bait and switch. It's fraud plain and simple and they should be severely penalized for lying about the services because "it's too expensive".

pockybum522 2y ago
I would love to see this happen. How do we actually bring a class action or some other thing that effectively means they can't do this anymore?
- cogman10 2y ago
  This is something that should be under the purview of an agency like the FTC. If you are affected by this you could file a complaint with them.
- vedmed 2y ago
  Why do you need a class action lawsuit? Simply sue the company in small claims court. Why give money to useless lawyer? You can put more money in your own pocket.
  - acdha 2y ago
    $5k isn’t going to get Google to stop lying. A class action settlement might.
  - atif089 2y ago
    OP was storing 400TB of data. I think Google charges like $100 / 2 TB so that's $20,000 /yr. Wondering if that would go outside small claims since small claims is up to €5000

derefr 2y ago

The type of marketer or program manager who comes up with an “unlimited” offering usually has a very limited imagination for exactly how much of something a customer could really use. These types usually have no sense for what limits their business could actually handle, because none of their current customers are using their service to anything approaching its operational capacity. And they probably don’t have any SREs to ask for stress-test data, either. So “unlimited” for them, just means “use it like everyone has already been using it and it’ll be flat-rate instead of PAYGO. Or go wild and use 10x or 100x that.” It doesn’t even occur to them that it’s possible that someone could use e.g. 10000x existing usage.

tpmoney 2y ago

Part of the problem is the definition has drifted, and the cell carriers want to (understandably) keep using the old definition, and the tech geeks (understandably) want the new one. When "unlimited" data became a thing, it was in a world where data for your phone was sold in bundles of hundreds of MB, and when you hit your cap, you had no more data at all, or were charged quite a bit of money per extra MB. In that world, it was possible to turn a $60 phone bill into a $600 phone bill doing less data traffic in a month than most smart phone users will use in a day. And so in that world, "unlimited" data was clearly and well understood to mean "no hard cutoff and no overage charges". Maybe "unmetered" would have been a better term, but "unlimited" was something of a term of art already in the cell industry as applied to voice minutes (see "unlimited nights and weekends") and to text messages, where in both of those cases this was also understood to refer to a no hard cutoff or overage charges. For most consumers, the "limits" of their cell service has always been the line before they had to start paying more. And a throttled data pipe is well within that understanding.

Dylan16807 2y ago
If it's always a certain speed, that's pretty reasonable. If the speed drops a lot after a certain number of bytes, calling that unlimited is deceptive. And that behavior is not unmetered either.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  So what word should they use for such a plan that distinguishes it from the plans where going over your allocated data amount starts racking up data charges at $1 / MB? And would you really be satisfied if the company advertised the plans as "unlimited 3G data with 5G SpeedBoost™ for the first 50GB"? After all, if it's "always" 3G then it's always a certain speed, and surely its not deceptive to give better service than paid for from time to time.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    That would be a fine description for it. I approve of this answer for your question of how to word it. Why do you think I wouldn't be satisfied? The big problem is that the 50GB cutoff is hidden. A cutoff like that is better than a hidden extra charge, but not a lot better. Also, if they had to directly mention the speed they probably would use 3G and that would be a big improvement over the status quo where lots of carriers go down to 256kbps or 128kbps. > surely its not deceptive to give better service than paid for from time to time It's fine as long as you don't give a false impression to someone trying the service. Calling out the 50GB as a different speed avoids that pretty well.

cam_l 2y ago

> any company that advertised unlimited and didn't actually allow unlimited X was penalized This pretty much happens in Australia. Almost every telco had been fined by the ACCC for some version of this. They keep trying it though, every couple of years. Just like the airlines and ticket companies keep trying drip pricing, and keep getting caught and warned or fined. The incentives are just too much to stop them. We need a better stick.

pennomi 2y ago
The better stick is escalating fines for repeat offenses. I’m fine letting a company off easy for their first offense. But that second one they should know better.
- cam_l 2y ago
  Sure, but I kind of think fines might be the wrong kind of disincentive for businesses. This breeds a cost-of-doing-business mentality. Lying to customers and breaking the law should be existentially dangerous to them. Perhaps some of the many privileges we afford big businesses should be clawed back once they show they are not trustworthy. Things which make it more difficult for the executives to do their jobs, easier for regulators to catch them if they do it again, and easier for the competitors to eat their lunch. Jail time for egregious offences is not a bad idea either. In AU, in the lead up to passing a bill to make wage theft a criminal offence, a lot of big companies magically reimbursed workers tens of millions of dollars for 'accidental' underpayment going back 10yrs or more. All of a sudden it wasn't just other peoples money they were playing with.
  - emacsen 2y ago
    I agree with you, and I'd like to offer two additional thoughts. Firstly, I believe that one of the reasons these large companies have moved to arbitration is that it lets them get away with more, even if they lose. If they lose, they only lose money, but the case is sealed, and the judge can't issue an injunction. If it goes to court, a judge can award more than just money- they can order the business to stop making certain claims. If they continue despite the order, they could be found in contempt of court, and that would be serious. Secondly, I believe that only criminal liability when there is willful misconduct will deter white collar criminals. In practice, that means if a company does something bad, their CEO or other board members may go to jail. I believe this could be a huge deterrent.

compsciphd 2y ago

they generally did disclose them. I think what you're arguing is that they shouldn't be allowed to ever change the terms, even with significant warning. One should view it as a monthly (even for those that paid yearly) recurring contract. Just like you can opt out of the contract at the end of each contract term, so can google (they just have to define what that means for those that got a discount by paying a year up front). Every month, the contract can change and the users can say its no longer valuable to them. Its not fundamentally different than those who "buy" licensed DRM content in the cloud (which can go away). We like to say its not buying, you're just "long term" renting. Guess what, that's exactly what this is, except that's the entire point here, to not buy and simply rent, so there should be no confusion.

katbyte 2y ago
I’m even ok with them changing terms, things happen. I just think companies should not be allowed to say “unlimited” unless it is actually 100% unlimited
- compsciphd 2y ago
  In practice, it was unlimited before the original change. many people had 100s of TBs and never had any issue until the policy change requiring them to move to a different product that clearly had a limit stated.