[jessaustin]

You would benefit from a sense of proportion. Come back with this noise when there's a Google line running through my front yard that I'm not allowed to dig up. If you don't like the Android that Google built for you, then don't use it. Google haven't been purchasing laws and agencies since 1937. Ma Bell has.

[thenewbtg]

Hey, step out of the 1980's!

I have used telecommunication services for over a decade now, and I have never once done business with AT&T or a Mabell company.

Perhaps it's YOU who needs a sense of proportion. It isn't 1984 anymore. Mabell isn't a massive monopoly: Google, however, is becoming one.

[jessaustin]

...never once done business with...

...Verizon, SBC, CenturyLink, Qwest, FairPoint, Frontier, etc.? Eh, seems unlikely. Or perhaps the extent of your telecom purchasing is cell service from an MVNO? Guess where the majority of your payments are going... Apparently it is difficult for some people outside telecom to separate what's going on from the marketing of what's going on. Don't feel bad: back in the late 1990s I believed the hype too.