[ NNSquad ] Justice Dept. sues AT&T over allegedly improper billing practices

[Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>]

Justice Dept. sues AT&T over allegedly improper billing practices

http://j.mp/GNFRFN  (AP / Kansas City Star)
  
   "The Justice Department sued Thursday to recover millions of dollars
    from AT&T Corp., alleging the company improperly billed the government
    for services that are designed for use by the deaf and hard-of-hearing
    who place calls by typing messages over the Internet.  The system has
    been abused by callers overseas who use it to defraud U.S. merchants
    by ordering goods with stolen credit cards and counterfeit checks. In
    response, the federal government ordered telecom companies to register
    their users.  The Justice Department lawsuit said AT&T failed to adopt
    procedures to detect or prevent fraudulent users from registering. The
    government said the company feared its call volumes would drop once
    fraudulent users were prevented from calling on the system. The
    government reimbursed AT&T $1.30 per minute for every call on this
    system."

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--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren 
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org 
Founder:
 - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
 - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org 
 - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
 - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com 
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren 
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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