Frustrating Puzzle

Hello Folks,

I am a bit puzzled and I need your advice.
I read the other night Bull Dog's (UK Broad-Band ISP bought last year by "Cable & Wireless" Telephone Network) Terms & Conditions for 2 hours and the next day for about another 1.5 hour (32 pages in total !) and there is a clause/section 12 which is worrying me.
Usually, all ISPs T & C mention that we cannot mis-behave such as harras others, send abusive messages, spam, mis-behave, etc. but it seemed to me Bull Dog is saying I will have to pay fines £2,000/£5,000 pounds (British Sterlings) if I or anyone using my broad-band connection engage in any of these.

Clause 7 states what we are prohibited to do and clause 10 states our liability to bull dog and bull dog's liability to us.

I emailed the customer service about this issue and he says he thinks (which means he is not sure) the clause mentions that bull dog's liability to me is
£2,000/£5,000 pounds and not my liability to them but if that is the case then I don't understand why it states "your liability to Bulldog" .

Anyway, my English isn't too good (as English is my 2nd language and I am not a caucasian) and was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to read the clauses/sections (they are short) and tell me what you think.

On their T & C link :

http://www.bulldogbroadband.com/general/terms_v2.asp

please read the section (it is short) :


12. SPECIAL CONSUMER TERMS


You will notice that the consumer section/clause (12 ) states :

" • subject to clauses 7, 10 and the obligation to pay Charges due under these Terms, Bulldog's liability to you, and your liability to Bulldog, in respect of all causes of action arising in each calendar year in contract, tort or otherwise (including liability for negligence or breach of statutory duty) under, in connection with or arising out of the supply or non-supply of Services and/or Equipment:

• in respect of each and every line shall be limited to damages equal to £2,000 in such calendar year; and;

• in aggregate shall be limited to damages equal to £5,000 in such calendar year. "

Actually, please read these 3 small sections/clauses :

7. YOUR OBLIGATIONS
10. LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY

before reading section/clause 12 because section/clause 12 mention about section 7 and 10 when it says "subject to clauses 7, 10 and the obligation to pay Charges due under these Terms,"

So, kindly read those 3 sections/clauses before posting what you have understood from the 3 sections/clauses.
You can finish them all in 5 minutes.

I asked customer service what they mean by "line" when the T & C states :

" • in respect of each and every line shall be limited to damages equal to £2,000 in such calendar year; and;

• in aggregate shall be limited to damages equal to £5,000 in such calendar year. "

and he said it means "phone lines".
I thought that maybe it meant that for every "line" of prohibited act (mentioned in section/clause 7) we may have to pay fine of £2000 (max £5000 per year) but I guess line means "phone line" after-all.
Nevertheless please keep both interpretation of "line" in mind when reading the sections/clauses and see which interpretation makes sense. I think their interpretation does now, but you never know mine could be right because as far as I am concerned the customer service maybe lying through their teeth just to sign us up as some of them do that here in the UK.

Ok, you might have a question : Why am I so worried that Bull Dog might suddenly start fining me ?
Well, as you can imagine, every house-hold has teenagers and experience tells me that they are most of the time "chatting" in chat-rooms and making "new mates" whenever they are on the internet.
And ofcourse, they chat with strangers and all sorts of people and sooner or later some guy wishing to be funny and wishing to start a chat-flame before ending his chat for that night starts abusing other chatters. My worry is, when teenagers from my house-hold get offended by other chatters (who start chat-flames) they are most likely to retaliate by sending similar abuse.
And that, might land me in trouble with my ISP (Bull Dog) as they have made it very clear on their T & C that they will monitor and record every internet activity.
Yeah, I can tell my house-hold not to swear at others on the internet and they would promise me they would behave but when the time comes when you lose your head because others are just being plain stupid and swearing at you for the sake of starting a chat-flame then you just forget all your promises and only remember it when your ISP drops you a big fine on your lap.
Frankly, I haven't found any better ISP than Bull Dog because with Bull Dog our minimum contract is only 1 month unlike most others whose minimum contract is 12 months.

Plus, Bull Dog offers 4mbs download band-width unlike all the others whose max download speed is 2mbs.
And, Bull Dog does not put uploading or downloading restrictions unlike most others.
That's why I prefer Bull Dog but that clause 12 is holding me back from signing-up.
To this day, I still use dial-up.

Cheers Folks !

In other words: Bulldog will be spying on you.

The section to which you refer is a limitation of damages. I couldn't foresee any damages from you using cuss words. Damages would be from misuse of service, such as using your account to propogate large amounts of SPAM or launch a denial of service attack. In this case there would be damages, but this stipulation states the limits to which they can sue you for damages. Likewise, if they fail to perform services and you have a reasonable claim of damage due to their breach of contract, you are limited in what you can sue Bulldog for.

Disclaimer: my advice is not that of a legal professional. For absolute clarity, such a professional should be consulted.

Thanx !

But, I thought that all ISPs monitor their network ?
Plus, their customer service tells me that their T & C is standard and they have thousands of customers and they are not in a position to monitor each and every customers's activities but I reckon they still can monitor each and everyone with a special software instead of doing it manually.

Ok. I understand that, you are saying, their liability to me would be 2,000 British Pounds per line and no more than 5,000 British Pounds
for a total of all lines if they cannot provide undisturbed service to me but when they mention about my liability to them then is it the same amount meaning 2,000 British Pounds for a line and no more than 5,000 British Pounds in total ?



Plus, I person pointed-out (he is not in the UK). Why should we be breaking their T & C if we knowingly receive some-thing such as spam ?
He doesn't like the sound of that.
Plus, my question is, how on earth will they know if we knowingly received it or not ?
Maybe, this is all entrapment ?
Maybe, they expect us to get a lot of spams from strangers and then start claiming that we "knowingly received them" just for them to be in a position to charge us fines ?
Hmmm.
But anyway, would you stay away from such an ISP ?

Cheers. :beer:

it seems pretty much standard stuff - have a look at other ISPs terms and conditions and you'll see pretty much the same on each of them.

They are obliged to warn you that they may be monitoring your usuage - it's similar to the warning about 'we may record this call for training purposes' etc.

Strictly speaking your liability is infinite: "7.1 You agree that you will [...] indemnify Bulldog against all losses, liabilities, costs (including legal costs) and expenses which Bulldog may incur as a result of any third party claims against Bulldog arising from, or in connection with your use or misuse of the Services or breach of these Terms." But again that's pretty much standard.

Section 10 is about liability. To be honest it is badly written - usually a liability section would inform you of their liability to you rather than place the burden on both parties. That said it's near enough standard.
(Although i would question whether section 10.5: "Your sole and exclusive remedy in respect of any failure to meet any Service levels (if applicable) set out in any Service level agreement (if applicable) shall be to the compensation schemes set out in such Service level agreement." is lawful. I'm not sure many courts would enforce such a term in a consumer contract since it would mean that they can curtail possible remedies. It's not important though)

What i think section 12.1 means with the part that states "in respect of each and every line shall be limited to damages equal to £2,000 in such calendar year; and; in aggregate shall be limited to damages equal to £5,000 in such calendar year." is they will pay upto a maximum of £2000 damages per year but if you have multiple "lines" with them then they limit the total they can pay to £5000.

As for whether they are a decent ISP or not i'm not sure.

But have a look at this site: adslguide.org.uk as it'll give you more info on each ISP available.

Also if you have a look at http://www.adslguide.org.uk/isps/compare.asp?bulldog=ON&virginnet=ON&cmp_action=Compare (i only included virginnet in the comparison as the site needed something to compare bulldog to): you'll see that they are rated about average which isn't amazing (virgin.net are pretty much a middle-of-the-road ISP and they are beating them).

If you are used to dialup 4mb might be a little more than you'll ever need - unless you've got big plans for the connection you'd probably be as well off (and a little richer) with 512kbps or 1mbps.


as medialint suggests - it would be extremely unlikely that you'd be held to pay damages if teenagers swear in chat rooms etc. The terms are just there to cover them in case someone abuses the connection. The 'spying' terms is so they can kick you off for using P2P excessively etc, or if the police ask them to monitor you, etc etc.



also i like medialint's disclaimer - so ditto for me