Why worry about mere governments when the phone company can ru(i)n your life? BT AKA British Telecom were reported on the BBC radio over the weekend to be using their customer's account records to poach business from Internet service providers. Sales staff searched for customers who frequently dialled known ISP numbers. They then tried to sell them BT's Internet service (imaginitively branded as "BT Internet") A bit of a marketing advantage that, knowing exactly who your mark phoned, when and for how long. What's next? Maybe BT Pizza will try contacting heavy users of Domino. Or BT Hot and Horny will send brochures in plain covers to subscribers who phone certain numbers apparently in Grenada or Chile (Not that I would ever call such numbers but a friend of mine was surprised to find so many Manchester accents in Latin America...) UK government's response to all that is at http://www.coi.gov.uk/coi/depts/GOT/GOT.html - which will also tell you about the way BT overcharges independent payphone operators and rakes off money whenever you call a mobile phone. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid%5F181000/181800.stm says how Kent police are doing a deal with BT so that the phone company will withdraw service from people who make too many frivolous 999 calls (emergency number - like the US 911 - but a lot easier to key in when your room is full of smoke). So if the police don't like you they can ask BT to cut off your phone and they just will? And if you think I've got it in for BT at least they seem to be more competent than their main rivals in the UK market, inCapable and Witless (did I spell that right?) for whom I spent a day and a half waiting at home last week, instead of at work. On Thursday I was there for hours for one man to come in, stick something into a wall port, see that it lit up (I could have told him that the connection to the switch worked) and give me a piece of paper to sign, telling me that they had connected my phone to the WRONG NUMBER which, after I had called them to ask for my own phone number back got disconnected entirely. On Friday they didn't turn up at all. Totally wasted day. And I currently have neither phone nor cable TV services, and haven't had for THREE WEEKS. And they had the temerity to send me a bill - even if it was only for 4.45. I think I should charge them for my wasted time. Maybe I should ask for consultancy rates. But I suppose if I demanded more than a year's phone bill off them they'd soon decide they dindn't have to supply me with service at all. Nuts. There must be a cheap way to get online without dealing with phone companies. They seem to combine the entrepreneurial spirit of the civil service with the humility of the banks and the dedication to customer choice of Microsoft and IBM. This mail is entirely my own private opinion and nothing at all to do with my employers who probably wouldn't approve of it in the unlikely event that they ever noticed it. Despite the fact that I am using their Internet connection to send it. Of course I could always have sent it from home via my ISP. Or I could have IF I HAD A BLOODY PHONE LINE THAT BLOODY WELL WORKED. Ken Brown