Excellent news. When the ISP's claim it's "too hard" to do, you know something is wrong. Either the ISP's are lying (duh) or the taxes and fees structure is just messed up... or someone is trying to slip in bullshit charges.
Our world needs more transparency. It breeds competition... and hopefully bankrupts a few corrupt corporations.
They're obviously not lying. NCTA's letter made the issue clear: retail stores have items pre-labeled, and, under this new rule, they'd need to create thousands of variations of those labels. Unlike sales tax, where the business always knows what it's going to be charging every customer, pass-through fees vary based on the customer's home address.
Again: these aren't fees Comcast chooses to charge; it's money local governments are taxing from their residents, piggybacking on the ISP billing system.
I don’t have any sympathy for telecos. But… it is difficult. For example, the city school district in my city, whose boundaries are not congruous with the city boundaries has an excise tax on different classes of wireless service.
These types of rules may have unintended consequences, for example requiring that you collect a street address before providing pricing. It also may encourage telcos like TMobile, who embeds fees in rates to be more AT&T-like “executive retreat recovery surcharge”.
The taxes and fees change all the time. As an ISP you have no control over what the government fees are going to be. How can you list a price up front when you are at the mercy of the people making up these rules?
I want the FTC to crack down on unlisted fees in general, cause it's been getting out of hand lately. Like, I'm entitled to stay at a hotel at the lowest advertised price, not that plus some $100 "resort fee" they tack on after I've already paid once.
Amen. This is the government intervention we need. Way too many services are tacking on large hidden costs as a run around to prevent price comparison. If there is no way to opt out, it is the price, not a fee.
This is specifically a hack to get around listing and booking costs. I'm surprised the big players like Expedia or Google or Booking haven't started cracking down on it themselves.
Reaction: If $ISP can't even list all the government taxes, fees, charges, etc. that they're collecting on my bill...then it seems darned unlikely that they can correctly keep track of all those different types of funds, and properly remit them to all the various units of governments to which they are due. Clearly the DoJ, SEC, State Police, State Atty's General, etc. need to move in on $ISP's Accounting Dept., and "un-gently relieve" $ISP of all the "accidentally unpaid" funds they've retained. Along with some "extremely generous" penalties and interest for their "oversights".
So an ISP needs to advertise a "$29/mo + local fees" plan as "$29/mo + $0-$80/mo in fees"
I guess other than making the advertising super annoying, I don't understand the ISP objection. Assuming every provider is faced with roughly the same kind of fees and it's a level playing field.
> Providers are free, of course, to not pass these fees through to consumers to differentiate their pricing and simplify their Label display if they believe it will make their service more attractive to consumers and ensure that consumers are not surprised by unexpected charges.
This is a surprisingly snarky response from the FCC. "If you are so worried about the label being confusing why not just raise your prices?" It's hard to believe that they are suggesting this seriously.
If an ISP advertises $49.99/mo, then they need to itemize on the bill anything that makes the final charge greater than $49.99. Right now, ISPs generally have a "Fees" line, with no insight into what said "Fees" are, unless you jump through hoops to contact them. ISP are complaining (presumably because the increased transparency will make it harder to milk the customer) by trying to claim that itemizing the invoice will be confusing since they have to pass-through all these state and federal fees. The FCC is saying "tough shit", and if they want to keep it "simple" then they need to roll these fees into the sticker price.
Basically, either itemize or be upfront. If the ISP doesn't want to itemize, then the bill must match the advertised price. If they want to keep the advertised price lower, they need to itemize all additional fees being added to the bill.
A lot of those fees are not usage taxes or similar, but rather costs of doing business that an ISP has chosen to pass on to customers as seperate fees so they can keep the headline price low.
It's like if your supermarket advertised their prices as $50, and then you go up to the till and it's $60 because they've included a "shelf stacking fee", and they claim that they can't just include that in their advertised price because their shelf stackers' wages vary by jurisdiction.
It's an important point for the FTC to emphasize, IMHO:
Businesses in many domains love to claim that any increase in their cost - taxes, suppliers, etc. - must be passed on to their customers.
That is absolute ripe BS, and anyone who knows any economics, finance, or has run even the smallest business knows it. More bizarre is that consumers - and others who know better and have no vested interest in the BS - all repeat it.
American ISPs operate under a confuseopoly paradigm of customer interaction. A confused customer is more likely to shut down and just pay the fees they don't understand.
Forcing companies to enumerate each item that goes into the cost will allow customers to determine just how shitty a value proposition those ISPs are offering. These companies have been in full damage control mode for years, having earned themselves positions of significant scorn in the US already.
Good. Companies should be able to charge the prices they want, but if that's the case they should be required to disclose the full price and nothing but the price.
"Separately, the order said the FCC rejected a wireless-industry "request to include potentially complex and lengthy details about data allowances on the label, and instead affirm that providers can make those details available to consumers on a linked website." To maintain simplicity, the labels must "identify the amount of data included with the monthly price," and "disclose any charges or reductions in service for any data used in excess of the amount included in the plan," the FCC said."
Just a reminder: the ISPs objected only to labeling pass-through fees, which aren't fees at all, but rather taxes levied by local governments and mandated on the ISPs (franchise fees are the most common example). Contrary to popular opinion, most of these franchise contracts don't include exclusivity; either way, it's money that goes to your municipality's general fund, not to Comcast.
NCTA asked instead to be allowed to label the maximum possible total bill customers would face, but FCC has, apparently, rejected that.
Any idea why they did this? What did Comcast stand to gain by not labeling these taxes? My imagination is failing me here. All I can think is that if Comcast wants it then it is probably bad for me.
We get some of this in oz, where larger entities often dont resell over smaller open access networks because maintaining a price book for 100 different networks is logistically very difficult for a large business.
What is tge FCC equivalent for restaurants? We need legislation to prominently display those bullshit "service fees" and "kitchen appreciation fees" everywhere, not just the final bill.
I don't know that the consumer expenses for dining out rise to the same level of importance as those for internet service in the digital world. On the luxury/need spectrum, the former is decidedly on the luxury side while the latter is increasingly on the need side.
That being said, I am curious what cities/regions or restaurant types you see this happening at. I don't think I've ever encountered anything like that where I live (southeast) except for things like the customary mandatory 18% gratuity for parties of 6 or more.
I think, playing devil's advocate for the ISPs here, the argument is over how they are supposed to be displaying local government fees on their advertising. Which would make for some pretty complicated ads if you could imagine, like, a billboard between 3 or 4 townships that all have different fees.
Here, the FCC I think provides a pretty reasonable suggestion that they can use "up-to" fees when displaying prices But it still means you have to know some of the geographic data on the person you are advertising a price too.
No. In fact, given the dishonest behavior of ISPs, the FCC should go even further, and require all ISPs to list the full sticker price of any offered services, and ONLY the full price, in all advertising.
They shouldn't even be allowed to list a price that doesn't yet include the fees. No asterisks. No appendices. No see below. No fine print. Just list the real price. Always.
In the UK, the advertised price of a service must be the price that a typical user ends up actually paying.
And it can't be hidden in the terms - all the actual amount paid by a regular user must be the headline price of the advert. Taxes, fees, etc must all be included.
There are some things that get quibbled over - for example should the advertised price of an ice rink include the price of ice skate hire? Most people don't own their own ice skates round there, so have to hire them too.
But in general, it means there are usually no hidden fees.
The taxes/fees on telecom services are complicated in the US because we have multiple overlapping taxation authorities who might impose them. Unless you know a person's address, you don't actually know what they're on the hook for.
This is fascinating, I live in a region where there are patches of competitive ISP area, and as a consequence, I have never seen an ISP advertise a price outside of a targeted mailing or phone call.
I had assumed that most of the rest of the country was like this, and you only got prices after you gave an address.
Even a medium size ISP that was running a "price for life" deal, didn't even advertise with the price was, and you got better deals if you were in a competitive area. (Based on comparing mailed advertisements).
Prices appear on physical mail advertisements I get for internet service, I get quite a lot of them, but billboards, television ads, and everything else simply lacks a price and touts product quality and speed.
Australia simply banned component pricing altogether.
You are simply not permitted to communicate any price other the total price, which must include government fees and sales taxes.
What makes this especially nice is that Australia also doesn’t allow employers to pay under a living wage (currently about USD $21 for casual staff), which means tipping culture never took off here, so your total out of pocket is always exactly equal to the advertised amount.
Aide: I believe in some jurisdictions in Australia it’s actually illegal to solicit tips, as it’s known to be discriminatory (since tipped amounts are known to vary by race, gender, age etc..).
I don't see why they can't just charge a flat rate that is slightly above whatever the sum of all fees would be and then they sort it out themselves. Is it actually better for the consumer that they charge us $36.78 instead of $40.00 so they can avoid listing 15 different local fees?
I believe that the rules are that if you list something as a fee, all of that money has to go towards that fee or else you get in trouble.
The FTC suggests though that ISPs just raise prices and internalize the fees. But then your price is always going to look worse than the next guy, and you may just encourage local governments to give you more fees for you to bury for them.
It's silly ISPs are fighting this, because if they can charge you a specific fee, it's obvious they can provide an CSV or Excel file with all the fees. I don't see anything too hard about it. It's literally a SELECT and maybe a JOIN with it.
Hell, I don't even understand what's so hard about it. Literally, Twilio gives you a nice CSV file with all the fees and tiers applicable to you and you can use it to ask for discounts. If Twilio can do it, you standard AT&T for sure can.
It's ironic how in The Land of the Free, ISPs are fighting to be opaque. If your corporate strategy is based on obscurity, maybe it's time for some serious consumer protection regulation?
I don't own the product (have a relationship with the person ultimately setting the pass through charges) and I sell the subscriptions to the end user for access.
Unless those passthrough charges are made available to me before the customer signs up, I cannot reasonably estimate them when advertising the service. Instead, I can only pass them through when they appear on my invoice, or absorb them. In fact those are the 3 options here. Pull out of the market, pass the costs through (and attract fines) or absorb the pass through fees.
Punishing me as the access provider doesn't make sense. Whether or not you have personal misgivings against the access carrier, it seems like the municipality setting the pass through charges should be asked to make them more consistent, or provide an API for lookup.
I dont know what the response here is going to be from the retailers, but I am betting its not going to be pro consumer.
After reading the FCC's statement this is clearly about elected officials and regulators wanting cover from corporations for the taxes and fees they levy. The corporations want to point out what goes into their costs on the bill, but it is impractical to advertise on price when each viewer of a TV ad may have a slightly different cost because of their location.
Either way, consumers are paying for it. The two parties are just arguing over how it is presented to the public. We will probably end up with even less transparency in advertising with tactics like: "plans as low as $X" or the like.
This reminds me of the notorious Hanlon's razor, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Similarly, in cases where a company claims complexity, "Never attribute to inability via complexity that which is adequately explained by greed." Call it Corn's Razor, if you will. :)
A published list of fees, while transparent, is a useless blizzard of data by itself.
One customer-useful approach would be a "dslreports.com" providing precise total average monthly bill amount for a specific address along with the breakdown.
If they can charge me, they can list the fee. Pretty fuc*king simple. Same bs hospitals, oh we can't predict what the bill will be but every time you have the procedure somehow a bill is able to be generated.
[+] [-] ShakataGaNai|2 years ago|reply
Our world needs more transparency. It breeds competition... and hopefully bankrupts a few corrupt corporations.
[+] [-] polotics|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|2 years ago|reply
Again: these aren't fees Comcast chooses to charge; it's money local governments are taxing from their residents, piggybacking on the ISP billing system.
[+] [-] Spooky23|2 years ago|reply
These types of rules may have unintended consequences, for example requiring that you collect a street address before providing pricing. It also may encourage telcos like TMobile, who embeds fees in rates to be more AT&T-like “executive retreat recovery surcharge”.
[+] [-] eppp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hot_gril|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0cf8612b2e1e|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legitster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|2 years ago|reply
Like, why would you just pay some random invoice some company sends you, without you asking for it?
Would they pay your “resort guest fee” if you sent them an invoice?
[+] [-] bell-cot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protocolture|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legitster|2 years ago|reply
So an ISP needs to advertise a "$29/mo + local fees" plan as "$29/mo + $0-$80/mo in fees"
I guess other than making the advertising super annoying, I don't understand the ISP objection. Assuming every provider is faced with roughly the same kind of fees and it's a level playing field.
> Providers are free, of course, to not pass these fees through to consumers to differentiate their pricing and simplify their Label display if they believe it will make their service more attractive to consumers and ensure that consumers are not surprised by unexpected charges.
This is a surprisingly snarky response from the FCC. "If you are so worried about the label being confusing why not just raise your prices?" It's hard to believe that they are suggesting this seriously.
[+] [-] amflare|2 years ago|reply
Basically, either itemize or be upfront. If the ISP doesn't want to itemize, then the bill must match the advertised price. If they want to keep the advertised price lower, they need to itemize all additional fees being added to the bill.
[+] [-] Macha|2 years ago|reply
It's like if your supermarket advertised their prices as $50, and then you go up to the till and it's $60 because they've included a "shelf stacking fee", and they claim that they can't just include that in their advertised price because their shelf stackers' wages vary by jurisdiction.
[+] [-] wolverine876|2 years ago|reply
Businesses in many domains love to claim that any increase in their cost - taxes, suppliers, etc. - must be passed on to their customers.
That is absolute ripe BS, and anyone who knows any economics, finance, or has run even the smallest business knows it. More bizarre is that consumers - and others who know better and have no vested interest in the BS - all repeat it.
[+] [-] thefurdrake|2 years ago|reply
American ISPs operate under a confuseopoly paradigm of customer interaction. A confused customer is more likely to shut down and just pay the fees they don't understand.
Forcing companies to enumerate each item that goes into the cost will allow customers to determine just how shitty a value proposition those ISPs are offering. These companies have been in full damage control mode for years, having earned themselves positions of significant scorn in the US already.
[+] [-] az226|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhhaskin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datadrivenangel|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|2 years ago|reply
Good.
[+] [-] tptacek|2 years ago|reply
NCTA asked instead to be allowed to label the maximum possible total bill customers would face, but FCC has, apparently, rejected that.
[+] [-] mulmen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protocolture|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meindnoch|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cvoss|2 years ago|reply
That being said, I am curious what cities/regions or restaurant types you see this happening at. I don't think I've ever encountered anything like that where I live (southeast) except for things like the customary mandatory 18% gratuity for parties of 6 or more.
[+] [-] mikece|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lizard|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sharts|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rolph|2 years ago|reply
>>FCC says “too bad” to ISPs complaining that listing every fee is too hard<<
[+] [-] supertrope|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legitster|2 years ago|reply
Here, the FCC I think provides a pretty reasonable suggestion that they can use "up-to" fees when displaying prices But it still means you have to know some of the geographic data on the person you are advertising a price too.
[+] [-] kalupa|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimbob45|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bud|2 years ago|reply
They shouldn't even be allowed to list a price that doesn't yet include the fees. No asterisks. No appendices. No see below. No fine print. Just list the real price. Always.
[+] [-] JoshTko|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|2 years ago|reply
And it can't be hidden in the terms - all the actual amount paid by a regular user must be the headline price of the advert. Taxes, fees, etc must all be included.
It works pretty well.
[+] [-] londons_explore|2 years ago|reply
But in general, it means there are usually no hidden fees.
[+] [-] meepmorp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kj4ips|2 years ago|reply
I had assumed that most of the rest of the country was like this, and you only got prices after you gave an address.
Even a medium size ISP that was running a "price for life" deal, didn't even advertise with the price was, and you got better deals if you were in a competitive area. (Based on comparing mailed advertisements).
Prices appear on physical mail advertisements I get for internet service, I get quite a lot of them, but billboards, television ads, and everything else simply lacks a price and touts product quality and speed.
[+] [-] scarab92|2 years ago|reply
You are simply not permitted to communicate any price other the total price, which must include government fees and sales taxes.
What makes this especially nice is that Australia also doesn’t allow employers to pay under a living wage (currently about USD $21 for casual staff), which means tipping culture never took off here, so your total out of pocket is always exactly equal to the advertised amount.
Aide: I believe in some jurisdictions in Australia it’s actually illegal to solicit tips, as it’s known to be discriminatory (since tipped amounts are known to vary by race, gender, age etc..).
[+] [-] izzydata|2 years ago|reply
I'm honestly asking because I don't know.
[+] [-] legitster|2 years ago|reply
The FTC suggests though that ISPs just raise prices and internalize the fees. But then your price is always going to look worse than the next guy, and you may just encourage local governments to give you more fees for you to bury for them.
[+] [-] ivanmontillam|2 years ago|reply
It's silly ISPs are fighting this, because if they can charge you a specific fee, it's obvious they can provide an CSV or Excel file with all the fees. I don't see anything too hard about it. It's literally a SELECT and maybe a JOIN with it.
Hell, I don't even understand what's so hard about it. Literally, Twilio gives you a nice CSV file with all the fees and tiers applicable to you and you can use it to ask for discounts. If Twilio can do it, you standard AT&T for sure can.
It's ironic how in The Land of the Free, ISPs are fighting to be opaque. If your corporate strategy is based on obscurity, maybe it's time for some serious consumer protection regulation?
[+] [-] protocolture|2 years ago|reply
I don't own the product (have a relationship with the person ultimately setting the pass through charges) and I sell the subscriptions to the end user for access.
Unless those passthrough charges are made available to me before the customer signs up, I cannot reasonably estimate them when advertising the service. Instead, I can only pass them through when they appear on my invoice, or absorb them. In fact those are the 3 options here. Pull out of the market, pass the costs through (and attract fines) or absorb the pass through fees.
Punishing me as the access provider doesn't make sense. Whether or not you have personal misgivings against the access carrier, it seems like the municipality setting the pass through charges should be asked to make them more consistent, or provide an API for lookup.
I dont know what the response here is going to be from the retailers, but I am betting its not going to be pro consumer.
[+] [-] macinjosh|2 years ago|reply
Either way, consumers are paying for it. The two parties are just arguing over how it is presented to the public. We will probably end up with even less transparency in advertising with tactics like: "plans as low as $X" or the like.
[+] [-] registeredcorn|2 years ago|reply
Similarly, in cases where a company claims complexity, "Never attribute to inability via complexity that which is adequately explained by greed." Call it Corn's Razor, if you will. :)
[+] [-] 1letterunixname|2 years ago|reply
One customer-useful approach would be a "dslreports.com" providing precise total average monthly bill amount for a specific address along with the breakdown.
[+] [-] az226|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roflchoppa|2 years ago|reply