[yifanlu]

I signed up for Comcast Xfinity using a brand new “hide my email” address and three months later I started receiving phishing emails at that address. (I’ve gotten over half a dozen so far). Made me realize that either Comcast was hacked (without disclosing it) or they’re selling people’s emails.

[redmattred]

I’ve experienced the same with comcast and have contacted their support. They claim there was no data breach or they aren’t selling emails, but that obviously isn’t the case.

[EE84M3i]

Well, it could also be the case that everything is working as designed, and that they gave your address to someone else who did have a data breach or is themselves sending the phishing emails.

[cromka]

Surely some attorneys would be interested in a class-action.

[sneak]

According to https://www.xfinity.com/Corporate/Customers/Policies/Subscri... you have to give up your rights to a class action and a jury trial to get Comcast service.

Additionally, they spend a ton of money lobbying and otherwise unfairly impeding competition, so in many places in the US, they are the only option, so it's give up your civil rights to lawsuits, or stay offline (or pay a wireless carrier who does the same anticompetitive scumbag shit a heinous price per gigabyte).

The state of both wireless and wireline broadband in the US is totally broken, and it's not getting fixed because it's broken by design, as part of the general attitude by large corporate interests and cooperative legislatures and regulatory bodies to treat the US population as a sort of natural resource like a flock of sheep to be fleeced rather than as legitimate customers to be serviced (or a legitimate market to be participated in on merits).

They do this by ensuring that there is no meaningful competition, and ensuring that if you do "willingly" engage in service with them, you have no meaningful legal recourse if they abuse you.

"We're the phone company. We don't have to care."

You have no real power against them because the people who control the system have decided that you should not have any real power against them.

[sircastor]

I’m no lawyer, but I wonder if this is more of a “go away” clause and if it would survive a real courtroom. Your lawyer would undoubtedly say “don’t waste your time and money”, but I question how many of our rights we can really, actually give up in a contract.

[withinboredom]

> but I question how many of our rights we can really, actually give up in a contract.

Theoretically, probably none. Otherwise, you'd be able to hire a hitman on yourself, have slaves, or restrict a person's free speech because they're an employee.

[eek2121]

Arbitration costs companies far more than lawsuits do. There was a guy that used to make tons of money off Arbitration clauses. Basically, the company is on the hook for hotel stays, transportation, food, etc. for the arbiter as well as anyone else that may not be local to the venue in question.

The reason companies went with this approach was to stop class action lawsuits from happening, which is where the real damage happens. One enterprising law firm started doing pooled Arbitrations (filing for hundreds or thousands at a time), which costs the company more than a class action would. Some companies have removed such clauses because of this.

[hackernewds]

Knowing how they're hijacking my bandwidth for their Xfinity hotspot service, the dark patterns to enable it, and the hiddenness of disabling it - it doesn't seem implausible.

[xdrosenheim]

"If you use our service, you can not sue us." Would that even hold up in court...?

[randomluck040]

I do that the old fashioned way with a catchall mail address and forward them. If they start smelling weird, I filter the address and change the mail address with the service provider.

[ed25519FUUU]

I wouldn’t rule out both.

[mslate]

Isn't it entirely possible that they are guessing your email address?

[dwighttk]

Probably both!