When was the last time you read your AT&T contract? If you answered “never,” then may I suggest you take two minutes to look this over. That’s right, unbeknownst to you, you just lost the ability to enter into a class action lawsuit against the mobile phone carrier. High five!

Right, so the language in question is:

Any arbitration under this Agreement will take place on an individual basis; class arbitrations and class actions are not permitted.

In other words, thanks to the new wording of the AT&T contract, if you feel like entering into a class action lawsuit against AT&T, well, you can’t. It’s all there in black and white.

The thing is—and this is based on like 10 minutes of research—any change to a contract that benefits one part over the other represents a chance for the other party to cancel the contract without facing any penalties or fees. So, if you don’t like the fact that you now cannot join a class action lawsuit against AT&T, ring ‘em up and say, “Yes, I’d like to cancel my contract, please. Here’s your rubbish iPhone back.”

This is not a good summer for AT&T. First the upgrade fiasco, then a mass nerd defection due to outages, and now this.

Via TechCrunch

"Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened."

Hopefully, the FCC will share Apple’s answers with the rest of the us. It is all a bit absurd, though. Why does it take a formal request from a government agency to get Apple (and AT&T) to explain what the rules are to get on the wireless Internet? More importantly, why are these companies allowed to be the gatekeepers to the wireless Internet? The iPhone needs to be smashed open, and the FCC is swinging the hammer.