AT&T rebuffed a lifelong customer who suggested to the company that it offer unlimited data for DSL subscribers, and a $10 a month fee for 1,000 text messages.
"AT&T has a policy of not entertaining unsolicited offers to adopt, analyze, develop, license or purchase third-party intellectual property ... from members of the general public," Thomas A. Restaino, chief intellectual property counsel for AT&T, responded to the customer. "Therefore, we respectfully decline to consider your suggestion."
The response "is the sort of ham-fisted corporate overreaction that serves no purpose but to keep customers at arm's length, writes David Lazarus at the Los Angeles Times.