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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Apr 7th 2000 12:04pm





I-Opener Baint-And-Switch

from the questionable-practices dept

The Netpliance I-Opener which made headlines a few weeks back for being a $99 net appliance which, with a little tweaking could easily be turned into a PC is causing more problems now. Right after all of that came to light, Netpliance changed the terms of their deal so they require customers to sign up for their ISP. That's understandable. Now, however, they're retroactively changing the agreement for folks who ordered it under the old agreement, but haven't received it yet. That could be illegal...

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    ScooterBoy, Apr 7th, 2000 @ 12:17pm

    that is so not cool. ok, so maybe they are taking a hit on the sale of the unit -- but I'm sure the publicity that the linux-hack has paid off the number of people actually buying it and hacking it..

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    Can you blame them?

    identicon
    Mr.White, Apr 8th, 2000 @ 11:54pm

    These guys stole [yes...] the 'appliance' and are getting charged for it....bummer, it happens. Now the fact that they are changing and doing retro-active.....not cool, but ....they can try. Illegal? One illegal move for another illegal/immoral move? Hmm, tit-4-tat. After saying that, tit is a for of expression, not to be confused with the jargon for female 'parts'. Nuff Said. MrWhite@collectivethoughts.org

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: Can you blame them?

    icon
    Mike (profile), Apr 9th, 2000 @ 3:42am

    First off, they didn't "steal" anything. They went through a loophole. The company is completely correct in closing off that loophole... However, they cannot unilateraly make changes to the contract that was already signed before they closed off that loophole. So it's not as simple as you put it. Besides, I have a very difficult time figuring out why it's "immoral" to buy something and make modifications to it when there's nothing that says I can't do it.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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