After being fined millions of dollars for engaging in “misleading marketing practices”, AT&T is taking advantage of “new rules that allow California phone companies to unilaterally change certain regulatory provisions without prior approval from state officials.” What? Who the hell decided to let them do that?! AT&T will be ignoring the disclosure agreement, which forced them to reveal to new customers its cheapest service first and to seek permission before making marketing pitches, because…

“We felt this wasn’t fair to customers,” said Gordon Diamond, an AT&T spokesman. “We wanted to streamline the process to make it faster and easier for people to sign up for new service.”

A spokesman from the PUC (responsible for the ignored sanctions) replied, “These requirements were all put in as remedial measures in response to AT&T’s sales practices,” said the PUC’s Brown. “That’s now totally shot to hell.” He said he plans to “raise hell” about AT&T’s filing but isn’t hopeful that other commission members will join him in challenging the revisions.”

Maybe we should help him raise hell. We know that we get enraged when we call about a service issue and have to listen to a marketing speech. We hate that more than we hate Miracle Whip, and we HATE Miracle Whip.You can let the PUC know what you think by calling (866) 849-8390 or sending e-mail to public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov.

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