From elastic!lethe!geac!gts!whome!infoshare!n2ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!n1van.istar!van-bc!news.mindlink.net!nntp.portal.ca!news.bc.net!torn!newsfeeder.toronto.ican.net!news1.io.org!falco Thu Jan 2 10:46:34 1997 Xref: elastic tor.general:64975 Path: elastic!lethe!geac!gts!whome!infoshare!n2ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!n1van.istar!van-bc!news.mindlink.net!nntp.portal.ca!news.bc.net!torn!newsfeeder.toronto.ican.net!news1.io.org!falco From: falco@vex.net (Golan Klinger) Newsgroups: io.general,ican.talk,tor.general Subject: ACC to kill off Toronto's oldest ISP Date: 29 Dec 1996 22:14:27 GMT Organization: Vex Networks Lines: 101 Message-ID: Reply-To: falco@vex.net NNTP-Posting-Host: hobbes.net4.io.org X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.1.1 BETA UNIX) Hello again, Since my last excerpt from the "private" support-l@io.org mailing list was so well received and because ACK won't admit they are going to kill off Internex, I thought I would bring you more! Yes, the words you are going to read are from Mark Morais (mark@ican.net) who is the head of tech support for Internet Canada in Toronto. Once you read this, you'll know FOR SURE that ACK is about to pull the plug... Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 14:35:08 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Morais To: support-l@ican.net Subject: [SUPPORT-L] IO payments Hi All, The powers that be have decided that accounts that go negative on IO will no longer be unlocked and the people will be transferred to customer service and be turned over for an ICAN.NET account. IO will also no longer be accepting additional payments for accounts as they want as little money as possible in the IO system when people are sold their ACC id's. From the system side we will make it as unobtrusive as possible by forwarding IO email to their new ican.net account for at least 6 months. This should give plenty of time for friends/relatives/customers etc., to learn the new email address. We will also keep the web machine going for a while to redirect web pages (something we didn't do for Ulix or Terraport) for probably about 3 months to give people the chance to advertise the new location. Hang on everyone, it's gonna be a crazy month. Mark -- A crazy monthg? He ain't seen nothing yet. We're a tenacious bunch and we never forget. Have email, will annoy. Now, more from Mark! Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1996 18:37:57 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Morais To: support-l@ican.net Subject: [SUPPORT-L] IO payments made last week. Hey all, A huge list of people who made IO payments before we stopped accepting them and those that have come in the mail have been given to Owen Gilbert. Trouble is, it's not his job to call them, that was given to someone else. We'll be dealing with these on Monday but we've made sure that everyone on the lists that paid will not be locked out. Those that were low we configred to expire on Monday or Teusday and there's a note in the persons file saying "account reconfigured until payment processed" or something like that. They will then be called on Monday. If anyone calls please tell them that their payment is not lost and someone wil be contacting them. Until that time their accounts should be OK. If there's any exceptions please let me know as we don't want anyone to go without service. As a side note, I've had Chris put back the ulock program on gadmin so everyone can unlock an IO account for the day. This is for people who sign up for ACC and need to get at their email one last time and move their files etc. Don't unlock a persons account more than once and advise them that they have until midnight to clear their things or it will lock out again. Mark -- Well, there it is. IO is dead, ACC/ICan killed it and they're too cowardly to admit it. Pissed off? Of course you are! I suggest you send email to: Steve Dubnik (president of ACC) Maggs Barrett (vice-President of ACC) Dan Hawes (head of "ACC NetMedia") Paul Barrett (head of "ACC Internet") Chris Mason (boy detective) Mark Morais (tech support manager) Or you can call around to complain, try: ACC Long Distance Inc. @ 5343 Dundas West Vox (416) 236-3636 Fax (416) 236-4749 Remember kids, call them, call often. Tell them what you REALLY think. Call your friends, call your relatives, your business associates and their associates. Tell them all that ACC/Internet Canada screwed you over and gave you shitty service. If you have ACC phone service, cancel it and make sure they know why you're cancelling it. Make a big stink and let these money-grubbing companies know that you can't fuck people over and expect nobody to do anything. Welcome to the Internet, ACC. Information will be free. -- Golan Klinger [falco@vex.net] For long you live and high you fly And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry Good, fast or cheap. And all you touch and all you see Pick two... Is all your life will ever be From elastic!lethe!geac!herboid!whome!infoshare!n2ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!newspump.sol.net!newsfeeds.sol.net!mr.net!visi.com!newsfeeder.toronto.ican.net!nnrp1.toronto.ican.net!news Thu Jan 2 10:48:45 1997 Xref: elastic tor.general:65094 Path: elastic!lethe!geac!herboid!whome!infoshare!n2ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!newspump.sol.net!newsfeeds.sol.net!mr.net!visi.com!newsfeeder.toronto.ican.net!nnrp1.toronto.ican.net!news From: kmedcalf@dessus.com (Keith Medcalf) Newsgroups: io.general,ican.talk,tor.general Subject: Re: ACC to kill off Toronto's oldest ISP Date: 31 Dec 1996 08:33:37 GMT Organization: Keith Medcalf and Associates Lines: 125 Message-ID: <5aaj51$kt7@nnrp1.toronto.ican.net> References: <5a912o$asp@nnrp1.toronto.ican.net> <5a9gd9$ghp@zot.io.org> Reply-To: kmedcalf@dessus.com (Keith Medcalf) NNTP-Posting-Host: zealot.dessus.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 In <5a9gd9$ghp@zot.io.org>, taob@zot.io.org (Brian Tao) writes: >In article <5a912o$asp@nnrp1.toronto.ican.net>, Keith Medcalf wrote: >> In short, Internex is not going to disappear very quickly, no matter >> how much ACC or ICAN wish it would. > What happens if the company with whom the contract/agreement was >reached no longer exists? Does Internex Online still legally exist as >a corporate entity, after it was folded into Internet Canada, and then >subsequently bought by ACC from Greenlight? Would this depend on the >terms of the purchase between ACC and Greenlight? No. There were contracts between Internex Online and its customers which were assumed lock-stock-and-barrel by ICAN/Greenlight when they purchased Internex Online (unless of course, the individual contracts between Internex and its customers allowed those terms to be modified without notice by Internex Online, and my agreement certainly did not allow that, so probably most customers did not either). So, we have a certain set of obligations of Internex Online to its customers. Those obligations where assumed by ICAN/Greenlight and would continue until such time as Internex's customers decided they did not either because the contract expired by whatever fashion the contract was deemed to expire (as I recall it, this only happened when an account ran out of money to pay the accruing charges, or if Internex decided to terminate an account for cause -- breach of AUP, etc) or the customer chose to terminate the contract. I do not believe there was any provision for the arbitrary termination of the contract by Internex Online. So, these obligations became obligations of ICAN/Greenlight when it purchased Internex Online. This is required by contract law unless all the affected customers were also a party to or waived the assumption of these obligations by ICAN/Greenlight. (I was not a party to the purchase agreement, nor did I waiver any contract terms I had with Internex Online). This is called an assignment. When ICAN/Greenlight purchased Internex, not only did they purchase its assets, but they also assumed its obligations as well, both fiscal and to its customers. For Internex Online customers still operating under original Internex Online terms (or under revised terms, whatever that may be), will also have those same rights, obligations and assets transferred to ACC when it purchased the company. Corollory: This is why, for example, when you purchase a house which has tenants in it, and you want vacant possession, you must covenant with the seller _and_ the tennant to provide that vacant possession. In fact, it is usually made a CONDITION OF SALE, and the sale is not completed unless vacant possession is obtained PRIOR to the signing date. The tenant is under no obligation whatsoever to yield possession to the purchaser. The purchaser becomes obligated to the tenant and the tenant to the purchaser in the same terms as the tenant was to the seller, unless the tenant agrees otherwise. In this case, the purchaser will _always_ require the tenant to be a party to the sale or to contract directly between the tenant and the purchaser, because if he does not, the tenant is under no obligation to vacate the premise, even if he had agreed separately with the seller to do so. Under contract law, as long as the purchaser continues the purchase, ever though the conditions of sale are not satisfied, the purchaser is assumed to have accepted the obligations and waived the conditions. Summary: In other words, ACC can absorb the Internex customer base by having Internex Online customers CHOOSE to modify their contracts, or can allow ATTRITION of that customer base by normal means (ie, let the contracts expire and not offer to renew them). On the other hand, I believe ICAN/Greenlight made statements at the time of purchase to the effect that they would continue to honour Internex accounts on the Internex terms and conditions. This statement would still be binding between any Internex customers at that time, who were still Internex customers at the time of the sale to ACC. That is to say that ACC is obligated to continue Internex as long as a single customer wishes to continue on those terms, and that they may not withdraw or discontinue in this obligation. Of course, as Don likes to say "Don't write a cheque with your head that your ass can't cash". This is to say, of course, that should ACC decide that they wish _not_ to fulfill their obligations, there is not much that can be done about it, save court proceedings for specific performance. ACC will, of course, have to weigh very carefully the liklihood of legal action if they decide to pursue such a course. They will have to consider it not only on the basis of whether or not it might be successful, but more importantly, on the basis of _COST_ and of the negative publicity that would be created. On a cost basis alone, consider that a single individual taking the matter into General Division at a cost of $125.00 (General Division is the only level of court with competent jurisdiction to hear and adjudicate matters of perogative relief -- and more so if you claim damages of $50,000.00 or more). It will cost ACC about $10,000.00 just to retain counsel for the proceeding, and those costs will mount extremely rapidly after the usual pre-emptory challenges are heard. An single individual could easily put quite a heavy financial burden on the company, and ten or twenty individuals, bringing individual suit, could easily bankrupt it. Not to mention the publicity which is bound to occur, especially if interim proceedings enforce specific performance are successful. Of course, the individuals will also have to face the risk that they might lose, and have to pay the costs of ACC in defending the suit. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. ------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Medcalf (416) 410-5791 http://www.dessus.com/ IBM OS/2, LAN Server, DB2/2, TCP/IP, DOS, Windows, Windows NT IBM System Management Software Specialist IBM BESTeam Member IBM OS/2 Warp Server Software Specialist Finger or email kmedcalf-pgp@dessus.com for my PGP Public Key From elastic!lethe!gts!whome!infoshare!n2ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!visi.com!newsfeeder.toronto.ican.net!nnrp1.toronto.ican.net!news Thu Jan 2 10:52:50 1997 Xref: elastic tor.general:65155 Path: elastic!lethe!gts!whome!infoshare!n2ott.istar!ott.istar!istar.net!winternet.com!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!visi.com!newsfeeder.toronto.ican.net!nnrp1.toronto.ican.net!news From: kmedcalf@dessus.com (Keith Medcalf) Newsgroups: io.general,ican.talk,tor.general Subject: Re: SRH: Urgent notice from ACC Tel (fwd) Date: 1 Jan 1997 19:37:43 GMT Organization: Keith Medcalf and Associates Lines: 21 Message-ID: <5aeee7$pd4@nnrp1.toronto.ican.net> References: <5adng1$9k5@zot.io.org> <32CA9D97.7E24@io.org> <5ae8ns$ha6@zot.io.org> Reply-To: kmedcalf@dessus.com (Keith Medcalf) NNTP-Posting-Host: zealot.dessus.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 In <5ae8ns$ha6@zot.io.org>, deirdre@zot.io.org (Leslie) writes: >So, they claim they're going to forward io's mail to the >corresponding ican account -- suppose they're going to forward >URL's for webpages, too? Do they have ANY clue how much time >and hassle is involved in switching a webpage address? Oh, >wait, silly question.... You are describing a technical issue. I don't think any technical people work for ican / acc anymore. Technical issues are totally irrelevant to mangement clusterfucks. I doubt that they are even prepared to be able to offer the services they are talking about, and I doubt very much their ability to be able to make it work. ------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Medcalf (416) 410-5791 http://www.dessus.com/ IBM OS/2, LAN Server, DB2/2, TCP/IP, DOS, Windows, Windows NT IBM System Management Software Specialist IBM BESTeam Member IBM OS/2 Warp Server Software Specialist Finger or email kmedcalf-pgp@dessus.com for my PGP Public Key