A few weeks ago, AT&T "mistakenly" cut the audio during a live Pearl Jam webcast while the lead singer was making political remarks.

Not to be outdone, last week Verizon (temporarily) blocked a pro-choice group from sending text messages over their networks (Free Press responded with a petition but other than some blog posts I haven't seen much else about it).

Verizon was clearly upping the ante in the telco censorship war. Fortunately (!), AT&T didn't waste any time in launching their latest salvo.

Accoring to Slashdot,

AT&T's new Terms of Service give AT&T the right to suspend your account and all service "for conduct that AT&T believes ... tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." After cooperating with the government's violations of privacy and liberties, I guess AT&T wants their fair share. AT&T users may want to think twice about commenting if they value their internet service.

You read that right. If you badmouth AT&T on your blog from your AT&T-provided DSL, you could lose your account. Once again: this would be irritating but not that distasteful if there was a lot of competition; someone who's been suspended could just switch to another provider. But when cable and DSL are the only guys in town, that doesn't leave a lot of places for an outspoken critic of the ISP duopoly to turn.

Stay tuned, I'm sure in the next few months (weeks?) Verizon will do something equally nefarious as the censorship war heats up.