The scene in the office on that sad day reminds one of sort of a virtual shiva; now-former employees make the last copies of their resumes on the office copy machine, the last paychecks are distributed, the boss signs letters of recommendations for workers, and whatever is left of the office supplies are distributed. And, of course, there’s the last lunch, with employees and managers reminiscing on their time together, and promising to keep in touch.

Then there are the assets. The hardware that the service ran on are often taken by creditors, or the VCs who will not be seeing a return on their investment; the patents are either sold, rented out, or frozen, in the hope that they will be used to innovate on another day. And, of course, the final monetary accounting is taken, ensuring that former employees’ pensions and other savings plans are kept safe.

What about the data? Ah, there’s an interesting question. We would expect the information on hard drives and databases to be wiped; indeed, there would seem to be little use for user data after the service has closed down. Of course, someone could mine the database for email addresses and sell them, but the reputation of the company – and especially the management, and super-especially the CEO – would be severely tarnished. It’s hard to imagine an internet startup whiz, who was able to raise millions of dollars to fulfill his or her vision, would stoop that low – or be that hard up for cash.

But there might be other information that could come in handy – depending on the nature of the service. Here is a quote from a well-known internet service, where you can store information, documents, and ideas, for yourself or for others. “By submitting to [service] any ideas, suggestions, documents and/or proposals… you acknowledge and agree that… your contributions automatically become the property of [service] without any obligation of [service] to you; and you are not entitled to any accounting, compensation or reimbursement of any kind from [service] under any circumstances.”

I’m intentionally not naming the service, because in truth this terms of service (TOS) agreement is not unique; Gmail’s, for example, says that they have a right to use your information in all sorts of ways. Gmail, the classic cloud application, stores all your information online, and nowadays many people are using Gmail for their main mail account – meaning that they transmit all sorts of sensitive information right to Google’s waiting claws, which the company can theoretically use for nefarious purposes.

But I’m not worried about Gmail; any company whose stock price is in excess of $600 doesn’t need the petty business ideas and thoughts we may send through and store on their servers. Whatever we can come up with, I’m pretty sure the Google people have already thought of, and they either have a pilot program going based that idea, or have rejected it as not being applicable to their business model.

But what about a service that stored information like Google does – including sensitive spreadsheets, business plans, communications, thoughts and ideas – shares of which are not trading at $625 a share, and in fact are no longer trading at all, because they’re bust? Could one of our business ideas – a really good one – end up the property of an ex-CEO, or to whomever said CEO or the board of directors sells the intellectual aspects of the former service provider?

Concerns over computer application and internet service TOS  are nothing new, and there have been many celebrated cases of user TOS protests – such as the one against Facebook, where users got nervous when Facebook claimed the right to use any user content posted by anyone, in any way they wanted to. According to the TOS that every user agrees to (but few bother reading before agreeing), the Facebook people have a perfect right to take your photos and sell them to an advertising agency. By clicking “yes” on a page that links to an agreement that says that “You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense)” and use in any way “any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service,” you’ve given them all the permission they need to use you in a “Don’t let this happen to you!” style ad campaign!

Partly as a result of the protests, Facebook has updated its privacy settings, making it easier to opt-out of any potential use of your content for purposes you didn’t intend them to be used for. But what are those Facebook-posted photos and updates worth anyway? It’s not like the company is going to auction off your photo to an ad agency for millions – and if your image is worth that kind of money, you’ve probably beaten Facebook to the ad agency and made your own deal, anyway.

But Facebook and Google are in leagues of their own; besides the fact that they’re wallowing in cash already, both companies would have far more to lose if they were caught selling, renting, or otherwise profiting from user content. As both companies make clear on their  websites and in numerous blogs, the legalese in the TOS agreements is for their protection, such as when data gets cached (and used) on a server not under their control, and ends up being linked to by an undesirable website. Numerous articles of mine, for example, are linked from the Jerusalem Post server to sites of less than savory individuals (anti-Semites and the like), but it’s clear that I couldn’t hold the Post responsible for that.

But when it comes to smaller web services whose future is iffy, beware. We want the convenience of the cloud, but not all cloud data and information storage services are created equal. I’m sure no CEO would be the type to want to rip off an innovative business plan or idea I posted/stored on his or her service/servers. And under normal circumstances it’s almost impossible to conceive of such a thing happening. But when the chips are down and said CEO is down and out, it’s entirely possible that his/her next Big Idea will be the very same one you jotted down and posted in your (private) account – an account on a site where the TOS says that “your contributions automatically become the property of [service] without any obligation of [service] to you.” It hasn’t happened yet (to my knowledge), but on the day it does, that fluffy white Cloud will turn dark and angry, and become the harbinger of a hurricane.

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Funny – we consumers are being squeezed all around, too! And if companies don’t have a grush (that’s an old-fashioned Israeli penny, for those who don’t know) to spare, we consumers are doing far worse – we’re in overdraft!

In one sense, the modern relationship between consumers and service suppliers (or even manufacturers) has become a see-saw. Companies are anxious to attract customers, so they offer rock-bottom prices for their products or services. But prices can only be cut so much; there are expenses that have to be covered, and somehow, companies have to make that money back.

For example: When a supermarket offers a “loss-leader,” they know that hordes of people will descend on the store for the on-sale product. But they’re also counting on those customers to buy the higher-priced items, to make up for the expense of the sale items. Airlines also provide an object lesson in this: Fares are historically low, but with crowded planes and iffy (if non-existent) service, flying is hell!

You’re always compromising something – either quality or service – when you buy cheap. But it’s not just the bargain providers who are stinting on service these days; full-price stores and service providers, encouraged by the example of how consumers sheepishly accept second-class as the norm, figure that they can save money on quality and service, too. The result: The whole concept of quality and service has been mortally wounded, with consumers expecting to get the proverbial “finger” at every turn.

Of course, you can always pay “premium” for “extra” quality or service – at a level that just a few years ago would have been considered “standard” (re commercial air travel). And while I could perhaps sympathize with the bottom-feeders for stinting on quality and service – I think consumers know what to expect when they buy at too-good-to-be-true prices these days – I have nothing but contempt for companies that are charging top shekel for their goods and services, but act like bargain sellers.

Take, for example, an internet service provider I work with, one of the six largest ISPs in Israel. They’re not a fly-by-night company – they’ve been doing ISP for over a decade, and usually my only relationship with them is paying the connection charges, since I am pretty self-sufficient when it comes to computer setup, installation, etc. For the first time in a long time, though, I needed their help with something – something that would have required the imparting of about five minutes of advice (which, it turned out, was readily available on the internet). But knowledge is power – and they weren’t about to part with that knowledge without a hefty payment!

Here are the details (don’t worry, we won’t get too technical!) Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve been using an internet router provided by Bezeq, the phone company, which I won in a lottery (or somehow other got for free). The first time I plugged in the router, I ran for cover, because it had far too many features for a home setup. Then when I recovered, I unplugged it and put it on a shelf – where it stayed until my “normal” router died, and out of desperation I decided to give the router, made by Asus (the infamous Asus 604g, for those who have had the pleasure) a try.

It actually works just fine, and is more or less self-managing – except for one issue. In order to work on several websites, I need to access port 2082, for an online application called Cpanel. Unfortunately, there is something in the guts of the Asus router that prevents accessing that port (very strange, because at this moment, a certain torrent program is downloading a certain file on an even more obscure port, 45601!).

After much effort configuring and reconfiguring, I figured I’d give my ISP a call. I’m a good customer – I pay my bills on time and don’t bother them too much with silly questions. Now, though, I had a serious issue; perhaps, having worked with this router extensively, they could give me some advice on what to do. I mean, it’s not like they’d be doing it for free; according to http://www.kamaze.co.il/, the NIS 75.90 I pay these people each month puts them at the “upper crust” (ie, second most expensive) of ISPs in Israel.

But no, said a pleasant fellow on the other end of the line (we’ll call him “Oren”). That information is classified – available only to “preferred” customers. One of which I could be if I was willing to shell out a subscription to their “network services,” at a cost of NIS 13.90/month, minimum six months. Wait a second, I told Oren. You’re saying that it’s going to cost me nearly a hundred shekels for five minutes of time with your ‘experts’ to get this working? Yup, said Oren. “How about this,” I said. “What if I ’subscribed’ now, got the information, and then cancelled my subscription after a month?” Nothing doing, Oren said – you “make a commitment to pay,” you pay. After much negotiating, Oren gave me his best offer: NIS 30 for a one-time conversation with the tech staff, who would guide me on what to do.

Well, of course I refused. And after a lengthy conversation, he suggested I call Bezeq, which supplied me with the router in the first place. In fact, he said, check out the Bezeq support pages – there just happens to be a PDF discussing exactly what I was trying to do! Wasting no more time, I did just that, and configured things according to the Bezeq site’s document. Alas, still to no avail. Even though I had done everything right, I still couldn’t get it to work.

It was time for a call to Bezeq, which I pay an internet connection fee to each month – surely they would support what they provided? But I should have gotten an idea of what to expect from the ads they kept pitching during the long (very long) minutes I was on hold; “networking” services for ten shekels a month, anti-virus protection for thirteen shekels a month, and other varied and sundry “products.” And of course, when “Yaron,” the Bezeq service rep, got on the phone, he quickly disabused me of my idea. The sought-after conversation could be had if I subscribed to Bezeq’s “expert” service, for more money, of course.

As it turned out, I got my answer for free – after a little more Googling. But the whole incident left a bad taste in my mouth, and in my wallet. In the old country, they used to call this kind of behavior “nickel and diming” – where a business tries to milk a customer for whatever it can. But it’s usually associated with “clip joints” on the Lower East Side, or other such less than savory shopping districts; you’d expect a respectable company you’ve done business with for years to want to prevent alienating customers. For example: Since the ISP in question was not the cheapest around, I told Oren, it’s an indication that price is not necessarily the main motivation for customers to remain with their service. Why not just charge an extra five shekels across the board and provide tech help to all who need it? That would surely cover the costs entailed in a more generous approach to helping customers, and enhance the experience for customers, who will feel more like humans and less like milk cows?

To this Oren had no clear answer – and as a junior employee in a big conglomerate, he’s the wrong person to ask. But if my ISP – or any other business or service provider, for that matter – prefers to think that price is the main (or perhaps only) motivation for my using their products or services, does that mean I am a “frier” for not automatically going for the cheapest option automatically? At least there, I won’t feel I’m overpaying when I don’t need “special services” – unlike the case now.

At which point, faced with a plethora of choices, you may just find yourself wishing that now-defunct monopoly back in existence!

Israeli trust-busters have been having a field day in recent years, legislating corporate diversity among cell phone service providers, long distance phone companies, TV and radio broadcasters – and now, local home and business phone service, wresting control of the fixed line phone business from Bezeq. Now, anyone with a license (which you get from the Ministry of Communications) can offer competing fixed line phone service, using the same phone infrastructure installed by Bezeq (but paid for by our tax shekels!). In other words, you use the Bezeq phone line, but you don’t pay Bezeq a shekel (or maybe you do, depending on whom you ask).

Long-time Israeli residents who remember the nose-up-in-the-air elitist attitude of the “old” quasi-governmental hyper-bureaucratic Bezeq jumped for joy when competitors started entering the home phone market in 2006, after the Knesset amended the Telecommunications Law (http://tinyurl.com/pp775z) to allow the licensing of fixed-line phone service providers – and to enable customers to keep their phone numbers when signing up with a new service provider (a provision which came into effect in 2007). Finally – a chance for the consumer to tell those Bezeq so-and-so’s where to go with their smug and condescending attitudes! On to the brave new world of freedom of telephone choice! Yeah!

Well, it certainly is a new world of home phone communications out there – and make no mistake, you need to be brave in order to take it on. For most home phone subscribers, there’s Bezeq, the known quantity, on this side of the technological abyss. Bezeq service works pretty much as it always has; you plug your phone into the wall, pick up the receiver, hear a dial tone, press the numbers on the phone pad, and talk. You get your bill at the end of the month and pay. Then you do it all over again next month. No surprises, and the service is usually pretty reliable; the only times you don’t get that dial tone are usually the result of cataclysmic events, like a war (when the lines may be jammed with worried callers or diverted for defense purposes), after a major storm when phone lines may be down, in the event of a strike – or, when you forgot to pay your bill.

But in this high-speed trust-busting freedom of choice era, variety is the spice of life, and you can now avail yourself of no fewer than five other choices for your local phone needs. Besides Bezeq, local phone service is now provided by 013 Netvision, 012 Smile, Hot (the cable TV service provider), Orange (the cellphone service provider), and Bezeq International (separate from Bezeq, known heretofore only as a long distance company).

As a good consumer (and thanks to a suggestion by a loyal reader), I decided to check out the phone field in order to determine whether I could save a few shekels by leaving Bezeq. So, can Bezeq customers save money by moving to another service provider? Short answer: Yes – but (there always has to be a “but!”)

The first question that people new to the concept of alternative phone companies ask is whether or not they can keep their current phone numbers. The answer is yes – thanks to the amendments to the telecommunications law mentioned earlier, your number is yours as long as you want to keep it, regardless of where you send your payments. You even get to keep your area code (if you sign up for a new line with any of the new service providers, they will give you the area code assigned to the company – for example, new accounts with 012Smile that were not transferred from Bezeq get an area code of 072).

All the competitors to Bezeq use broadband to connect your calls to the local and international phone network, so you have to be an ADSL customer with some level of high-speed internet in order to take advantage of their deals (unless you’re a customer of HOT, the cable company, which uses its own infrastructure to offer phone service).

All of the service providers offer what appear to be very attractive prices. Speaking at length to Ilan, a rep from 013Netvision, for example, I was offered a deal that would let me surf the internet (at a speed of 5MB/s) AND make 3,000 minutes of calls to landlines in Israel for NIS 55 a month. That sum does not include calls to cell phones, but for an extra NIS 7.90 a month, I could reduce the cost of calls to cell lines from the 33 agurot per minute they usually charge to “less” (depending on how much I called, times of day, etc.). In addition, Ilan told me (after somehow ascertaining that I was observant) that his company’s service was “approved by the Great Rabbis,” and that since calls to other 013Netvision customers were free, I could hear the various Torah-on-the-phone lectures that the company hosts for free, for as long as I wanted to listen. That sounded like a good deal – maybe a little too good, as we will see below.

I also checked out Orange, with whom I have a cellphone account. While Orange may not have the best price, it does have very advanced services, especially for Orange cellphone customers; for example, you can forward a call to your home or cell phone to the other device when one of them rings, you can hold as many as three conversations at once, and you pay one price to all phone numbers – including cell numbers (everyone else charges the same rate as Bezeq for calls to cellphones). I figured I could save about NIS 60 a month if I switched to Orange’s phone and internet service provider plan (you can find a helpful calculator here which will show you how much you can expect to pay, based on how much you surf and talk).

The story was the same everywhere else; Bezeq, it turns out, is more expensive than all the other providers (the one with the cheapest rates was Bezeq International). So of course I called Bezeq in order to see if they could be bargained with.

Apparently many others have done the same in recent months, because as soon as I said “013Netvision” and “Orange home phone,” they transferred me to a fellow who was clearly trained to deal with calls like mine. Of course, he said, you realize you won’t get the same quality with “the others,” since you’re using your ADSL line for talking and surfing at the same time. “I have had so many customers come back after they left to try out the others, complaining about how their calls drop when they download a movie or other heavy item,” said Matan, the rep. In addition, he said, all these companies were still obligated to pay Bezeq a line fee for use of the ADSL line, which added about NIS 25 to all the alternative providers, including (he said specifically) 013Netvision, a claim that both they and Orange denied, claiming it was already included in their monthly fees. In addition, Matan from Bezeq said, you have to pay an installation fee to switch services, and there is definitely a negative impact on phone service when you surf the net.

Installation does indeed cost money, with all the Bezeq alternatives – mostly in the area of NIS 200 or so. However, many of the companies seem willing to waive the installation fee if you are willing to commit to a period of service, like a year (both Orange and 013Netvision said I could drop the phone service any time, although they both wanted a year commitment on the internet service).

The latter claim is easy to check out too: If you’ve ever used a service like Vonage (or even Skype) on your home ADSL line, you’ll be ready for the worst-case scenario with the alternative phone companies. Just how much broadband “juice” does an Internet phone call use? I found a few interesting discussions on the internet (see http://tinyurl.com/qd4cfh, http://tinyurl.com/qu5yts, and http://tinyurl.com/okjx8g), but of course, those rates are dependent on many local factors that may or may not be relevant here in Israel.

And that, really, is where the dream of “punishing” Bezeq for all the injustices Israelis have suffered at the company’s hands over the years fell apart, at least for me. Because while in theory a 5MB/s connection sounds like it should be able to cover both serious surfing and internet phone calls, the sad truth is that you’re probably getting far less speed than you think you are (that’s a story for another day, but meanwhile check out the Hebrew article on the subject at here). Bezeq, of course, will say that the reason your bandwidth speed is up to 40% less than what you’re paying for is because of your home network, devices that are using the bandwidth, etc.

Which could very well be true – but currently, 5MB/s is the most cost effective speed for Bezeq ADSL (the price jumps significantly at 8MB, the maximum offered to home users, unless you live in an area served by its next generation network, which you probably don’t). Unfortunately, based on my experience, I’m not ready to trust my home phone service to the graces of my current ADSL setup – and as a result, Bezeq gets to keep its monopoly at our place, at least a little while longer.

This logic can extend to other areas of life – but the slippery slope may have a deeper decline than most of us realize. Is there such a thing as too much security? For example – is it okay for the authorities to read our mail? After all, someone could be communicating plans for a terror attack. How about e-mail? We’ve all heard stories of how terrorists communicate with each other electronically. Cell phones conversations? Maybe they need to be monitored too.

Granting such wide-ranging authority to the authorities seems like an act that would make for an iffy socio-political experiment – to determine whether or not government can have near complete, on-demand access to personal communications, while still ensuring personal liberties. And it’s an experiment in which we Israelis are the guinea pigs, thanks to Israel’s version of the Patriot Act, the Communications Data Law (also known as the “Big Brother” law). The law passed in June, but hasn’t really been enforced yet – because specific procedures for collection of some of the data have not yet been authorized.

To those who grew up in western societies where the right to privacy was considered unassailable, the law’s tenets can seem disturbing, to say the least. Under the new law, police have the right to demand from service providers any information they deem necessary on your electronic communications habits and history. This includes a complete history of your Internet surfing, all the e-mail messages you send or get, the address of all your e-mail correspondents (and copies of their messages, too, if necessary), a list of all the phone calls into or out of your cell phone, and the names and phone numbers of all of your cell phone contacts, whether or not they have blocked their numbers from people they call.

Police can request any of this information on the basis of an investigation they are conducting, based on their own criteria – in other words, they do not have to get a court order, or consult with a judge or anyone else. All they have to do is show up with an order signed by an “authorized” police officer – and, according to the law, the ISP or phone company in question is required to comply. If the law has not been widely used yet, says Nirit Moskowitz, a spokesperson for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), it’s most likely because police have not yet built the databases and information management units to handle the flood of data.

It’s a heavy load of responsibility for anyone to be carrying, ACRI says. And, says Moskowitz, police were already been taken to task by Knesset members for abuse of power on using the law – with the ink barely dry! At a Knesset committee discussion last August to approve some of the procedural issues surrounding the law, Knesset members were astounded to learn that police had used the law to demand information from one of the cell phone companies that was not covered by the law; the cell phone company, thinking that police now had the right to ask for the data, willingly surrendered it. The Mks were so taken aback by the development that they cancelled the session – and last month cancelled a second session that had been scheduled to approve the procedures. Meaning, that major parts of the law are still in limbo.

ACRI, meanwhile, has been petitioning the High Court, seeking to insert adjustments to the law that would prevent some of the potential abuses Moskowitz says have already shown themselves. “Besides the issue with the cell phone company, the number of officers authorized to demand information has grown considerably in the year or so since the law was passed.” The original idea, said Moskowitz, was that police would appoint a coterie of high ranking officers to decide on a case by case basis whether use of the law’s mandate was necessary. But that list has grown, Moskowitz said, meaning that it’s more likely that police will make use of the law. A High Court session that was set to consider ACRI’s petition this week has been postponed until next February, when seven judges will hear the case, instead of the three who had dealt with it until now.

Regardless of whatever adjustments are made, however, law enforcement – that includes police, military police, border police, the tax authorities, Treasury enforcement, the Justice Ministry, and others – will still be carrying a huge stick. And for many of us who grew in Western cultures, that stick seems far too big for anyone to be carrying in what we hope can be considered a free society.

At first glance, that is. But in this age of super-databases, easy to access listening equipment, or hackers and crackers getting at our credit card records, is there really anything such as “privacy” anymore? Without knowing too much about us personally, for example, Google and Amazon knows exactly what ads to flash at us or what specials to tout in their e-mail offers. If once there was six degrees of separation between any two random people in the world, today there is one – your firewall, and when a hacker breaks it (as s/he can relatively easily), your data joins the rest of the world. Is it unreasonable for law enforcement to have access to the same information any dedicated 16 year old can get at? And if a 16 year old can operate under the radar, what about sophisticated terrorists?

Even ACRI, says Moskowitz, sees a need for the law. “We can understand the need for police to make their own decisions, to act quickly even without the authority of a judge, even without a specific threat or ’smoking gun.’” But, she says, “there needs to be a balance. We are giving police a lot of power and we are hoping they will do the right thing. We want to be sure this isn’t too much power for them to handle. But on the other hand, we don’t want the mafia to think we’re going to work to give them a free pass – in such circumstances, police should be free to act,” she says.

Security vs. freedom is a debate that has been ongoing around the world since 9/11 – but Israel’s Big Brother law is definitely one of the most “advanced” – meaning severe – anywhere in the free world. Can we handle it? Can our police handle it?

Maybe – hopefully – our past experience with heavy security will be a guide for us here, too. Visitors are often struck at how many guns – big ones – are displayed out in the open by IDF soldiers traveling on buses, hitching rides, or sitting in cafes. In other countries, most of us would get very nervous seeing a machine gun resting on the lap of a 20 year old napping while on a long-haul bus ride – but somehow, in Israel, we “know” that everything is going to turn out okay. Everyone’s a soldier, or at least everyone’s father, brother, sister, uncle, cousin, etc. is, or was. We know them; they certainly wouldn’t hurt the ones they love, and are in the army strictly to protect themselves, their family, and community. They can be trusted to walk around with an Uzi. Not everyone has a relative in the police department – but somehow, we consider them “mishpacha,” family, as well. And your relatives would never do anything to really hurt you, would they? Well, here’s hoping!