Yesterday we reported on AT&T's controversial Terms of Service, which in broad legal language gives AT&T the right to terminate a customer's service for activity which AT&T deems "damaging" to its reputation. As we noted yesterday, the legal language is particularly vague and appears to give AT&T broad discretion in deciding what constitutes "damage."

To recap, in section 5 of its legal ToS, AT&T stipulates the following:

AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

Translation: "conduct" that AT&T "believes" "tends to damage" its name, or the name of its partners, can get you booted off the service. Note the use of "tends to damage": the language of the contract does not require any proof of any actual damage.

Interpretation of this section of the ToS has been practically unanimous online: it gives AT&T the power to punish customers that dare criticize the company. However, an AT&T spokesperson tells Ars Technica that the company has no interest in engaging in censorship but stopped short of saying that AT&T could not in fact exercise its ability to do so.

"AT&T respects its subscribers' rights to voice their opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. However, we retain the right to disassociate ourselves from web sites and messages explicitly advocating violence, or any message that poses a threat to children (e.g. child pornography or exploitation)," the spokesperson told Ars Technica. "We do not terminate customer service solely because a customer speaks negatively about AT&T."

The language of the contract reflects synchronization between the AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Terms of Service with the Terms of Service for AT&T's Worldnet and BellSouth customers. AT&T says that the language is not new, nor is such language unique to AT&T's contracts. It does appear to be here to stay.

Some readers who learned of the updated Terms of Service were upset by them, but not surprised. A reader drew connections to AT&T's involvement in the recent domestic spying scandal. "Given the fact that AT&T doesn't seem to have been hurt much with the spying case, I really don't think they will be hurt much if they cut off people that criticize them," wrote one reader.

Customers will have to take AT&T's word on faith, for the language of the contract is far broader than the spirit of its intent, as described by the AT&T spokesperson. However, as I noted yesterday, AT&T is clearly aware that using the ToS for censorship could cause considerable uproar. It's a cliché, but only time will tell if AT&T sticks to its word.