
Sonic.net CEO: We Delete User Logs After Two Weeks. Your ISP Should, Too. - simba-hiiipower
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-of-internet-provider-sonic-net-we-delete-user-logs-after-two-weeks-your-internet-provider-should-too/
======
jedberg
I love sonic. We used them for the reddit office. They were the cheapest and
fastest option. Once one of their reps stopped by just to say hi and make sure
we were happy.

I've been begging them to let me give them money for my home connection.

~~~
iandanforth
I have Sonic at home, and applaud this log deletion policy. There's only one
thing that bothers me about Sonic, the marketing vs reality of DSL.

Their marketing: $39.95/m for speeds up to 20Mbps

Their reality: ~$50/m for ~8Mbps

Now I continue to pay despite this discrepancy. I just wish there was more of
an 'under-promise, over-deliver' mindset in their marketing dept.

~~~
bentlegen
I presume you're referring to their DSL service, in which case performance
depends upon the distance between your home and their access node.

[http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r26910859-New-
Fusion-a...](http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r26910859-New-Fusion-
average-speed-distance-chart)

~~~
latchkey
I have Fusion on Sonic and I get around max ~750KB/sec (2.97Mbps according to
speedtest.net) downloads. Apparently, I'm at the tail end of the distance from
my central office. Sigh.

------
shahidhussain
I used Sonic when I lived in SF. Dane himself tweeted back when I mentioned
them, and their customer service has been super transparent (you can see on
their support page [1] how many calls are on and waiting), extremely honest
and helpful, even for a nerd like me.

I have nothing but admiration for these guys.

[1] <http://www.sonic.net/support/index.shtml>

~~~
wpietri
Yes. Love these guys. Every time I call support I get to talk to somebody with
both knowledge and sense. In sharp contrast to when I had AT&T DSL or have to
deal with Comcast for friends.

------
rogerbinns
My gripe with Sonic is they pull stunts on the telephony just like the
scumbags such as AT&T. In my case they will not supply DSL without also
supplying phone service, for which I have absolutely no use. I don't even have
a physical phone to plug in and haven't for years.

They claim the phone service is "free", but you get nailed with various taxes
and fees. The taxes are a legal requirement. The fees are entirely up to
Sonic, although some have regulatory maximums. And Sonic charges those
maximums - something AT&T doesn't!

If they were honest they wouldn't hide things like this, pretending something
is free when it clearly isn't.

~~~
Josh2600hz
How do you deliver DSL without a phone line in the US?

Even AT&T delivers a phone line on their "direct DSL", they just hide the
costs of regulation in the rate.

This, to me, isn't a case where sonic is to blame. This has more to do with
restrictive FCC requirements than it does with Dane.

Phones are due for a regulatory rework.

~~~
gcb
You are wrong. After getting a special number ( 1-800-288-2020) i was able to
order dsl from att without a landline contract and phone taxes from
California. Nothing.

Catch is, the advertised price of $25/mo for 6mbps only last one year, and you
have to sign up for two years, paying $55/mo on the second.

Still beats paying $40 all around for the crappy cable latency i get here (at
One block from the att repeater building!)

~~~
noselasd
So in both cases you pay $960 for 2 years, except in one case you don't get a
phone line.

~~~
eru
My math comes out differently.

------
sdfjkl
UK equivalent: <http://aa.net.uk/>

_"We have no so called black boxes to covertly monitor traffic and/or pass
traffic monitoring to the authorities or anyone else. Obviously the law is
such that we may have to add such black boxes, but we would resist as far as
possible. We may even find we are not allowed to change this web page if ever
that happens. However, I, as director, am happy to answer direct questions on
this matter on irc (user RevK) or on usenet and you can get paranoid if I
refuse to."_ \-- <http://aa.net.uk/kb-broadband-realinternet.html>

------
lrem
Your ISP should, unless you live in a country that does prevent that. There's
a law in European Union requiring us to keep logs between 6 months and 2
years. Oh, and there are countries like Poland, whose government asked to
prolong that time, as 2 years is not enough (thankfully that was rejected).

It's still a surprise to me that USA doesn't have anything like that. It's
like the first time EU is first at something ;)

~~~
swang
It's because Law Enforcement in the US has been lobbying for longer times.
From the article:

DJ: I would speculate it would be an unpopular move that might result in more
friction with law enforcement. Law enforcement has been lobbying to pass laws
that would require service providers to keep 18-36 months of logs. It’s in
their interests.

~~~
lrem
Oh cool... Polish government tried to enforce 10 or 15 _years_. We were
discussing whether to keep it for them as printouts in 4 points font, or just
as single copies of cheapest dvds ;) Thankfully, they were not allowed to do
that.

------
lawnchair_larry
It's worth noting that due to the PATRIOT Act, they do not delete your logs
after 2 weeks if they receive a NSL. NSLs include a gag order, so you will
never know if they stop deleting your logs.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Letter>

The feds issue hundreds of thousands of these, and they require no warrant or
judicial oversight.

NSLs can not only be issued to individuals under investigation, but
"communities of interest" - so basically the social network of anyone under
investigation.

------
jc4p
Interesting back-and-forth, but seeing sites like this really makes me
appreciate having Readability one button away. The combination of the huge
banner and the facepile on the bottom of the screen make it very distracting
to read.

~~~
RKearney
Not to mention my Ghostery Chrome Extension found 25 tracking sites on the
page.

    
    
      * 24/7 Media
      * Advertising.com
      * AppNexus
      * Bizo  
      * BlueKai  
      * DoubleClick  
      * eXelate  
      * Facebook Connect  
      * ForeSee  
      * Gigya Beacon  
      * Gigya Socialize  
      * Google +1  
      * Google AdWords Conversion  
      * Google Analytics  
      * Invite Media  
      * Krux Digital  
      * Legolas Media  
      * Media Innovation Group  
      * Right Media  
      * ScoreCard Research Beacon  
      * ShareThis  
      * TargusInfo  
      * Turn  
      * Vertical Acuity  
      * Visual Revenue
    

I think that's a little excessive, especially for an article about keeping
logs.

~~~
taylorbuley
Many of our programmers and writers agree. We're an advertising-based business
(free online news) so I view this as one consequence of that

A small chunk of these are due to social and other 3rd party features, a good
chunk plain old analytics tracking, and another small chunk are due to our
"brand lift" advertising guarantees (e.g. in some cases its ensured that
readers are actually seeing your below-the-fold advertisements before we
charge you for them).

That said, yes, more than a few Ghostery hits are so we can, e.g., buy an ad
to reach Forbes readers when you're visiting Adweek.com or something. Ghostery
is great and a useful instruction tool for showing the "boiling frog" that is
pixels.

~~~
gcb
Tell your programmers to get informed on the safee standard being proposed at
iab. Name may change.

------
citricsquid
The link is to Page 2 of the article, could a mod update it to link to the
first page?

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-
of-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/06/22/ceo-of-internet-
provider-sonic-net-we-delete-user-logs-after-two-weeks-your-internet-provider-
should-too/)

~~~
simba-hiiipower
sorry; noticed that right after i posted.. if someone could update it that
would be great.

------
sharkweek
I think this is a great idea, but I'm curious... -- so I'm playing devil's
advocate with this question -- Couldn't there be some risk that it would be
tough to build a case against someone involved in illegal activity? Like how
much harder is it to build a case against CP offenses with only access to two
weeks of logs?

~~~
poink
There's no way to answer that question broadly, since it depends on which
other sources of information law enforcement can consult in a given case.

For what it's worth, unless you retain data forever, it's always possible to
delete it the day before you need it.

------
awolf
We have sonic.net in San Francisco. Unfortunately the speeds in our
neighborhood (Haight Ashbury) are dismal. 7.5 Mbits/s, for the premium
service. $90 /month.

I love the ethos of the company, but we're suffering here and will be
switching soon.

------
digitalboss
Dane Jasper is awesome - met him a couple times at SF Night Owls - follow him
here <https://twitter.com/#!/dane>

------
eridius
I really wish I could use Sonic.net (for my home). Unfortunately (up to)
20MBps is just not good enough.

------
dfischer
I wish we had Sonic in SoCal. Only option is basically Comcast and they
fucking suck.

~~~
heretohelp
Don't be too jealous, I'm in Mountain View and despite being a few blocks away
from Google I have the same options. It's baffling.

Only SF realistically has Sonic available to them. Supposedly some backwater
in Central Valley has it too.

~~~
jrockway
Most people I know in Mountain View have the Comcast Business internet
connection, which is basically a different company from Comcast. (Different
customer service, different billing, different equipment, etc.) Apparently you
can even negotiate the rate down to $75 a month, which is a lot less than I
pay for Time Warner's "we are a monopoly so fuck you with a stick" package in
Brooklyn.

~~~
dfischer
Why does this monopoly exist? Is it related to law? Or is it related to
needing a massive infrastructure to support such a business? Why can't a
company "start-up" to offer fast competition in a city like Los Angeles?

------
nextstep
Can anyone give a recommendation if my ISP choices are Webpass and Sonic.net?

------
VonGuard
Switching this week. Bye bye Megapath/Speakeasy.

