Marriott Withdraws WiFi Blocking Proposal to Universal Scorn: But Why This Won't Be the Last Attempt

Tactical retreats in order to gain strategic advantage in the future have long been a part of the warrior's canon.

And so the Marriott hotel chain, usually adept at intuiting consumer interests, decided to withdraw its proposal to block its guests efforts to use any WiFi in its hotels for which Marriott was not compensated or for which it could not capture the attendant personal information.

The company attempted to frame this in a positive light, claiming it intended to do the right thing but withdrew when its customers voiced objections. All very corporate.

But the reality is that this is just one more assault on the notion of net neutrality. Enterprises recognize that, like the airline industry, there is considerable profit to be gained from nickel and diming consumers over every additional fee they can imagine. The telecoms, cable companies and internet service providers will continue to try to chip away at this last great vestige of 'free' access because there is just too much potential financial gain to be had. Any other entity with an interest in generating net revenue, as it were, will join them.

Marriott may have been forced to retreat this time. But they will keep trying to find other ways. And they are not alone. JL

Jacob Kastrenakes reports in The Verge:

"We thought we were doing the right thing."
With the FCC pretty much laughing off Marriott's request for permission to block guests' access to external Wi-Fi networks, the hotel chain has decided to withdraw its petition in a late attempt to save face. "We thought we were doing the right thing asking the FCC to provide guidance, but the FCC has indicated its opposition," Bruce Hoffmeister, Marriott's chief information officer, says in a statement.
"We thought we were doing the right thing."
Marriott filed its petition with the FCC last year, requesting that it be allowed to "monitor and mitigate threats" to its network, even if that meant interfering with guests' devices. The FCC and many others read this as Marriott wanting to block guests' Wi-Fi hotspots and access to other external networks so that they'd be forced to pay for access to the hotel's wireless service. The hotel chain says that its intent "was to protect personal data in Wi-Fi hotspots for large conferences."
Two other parties filed the petition alongside Marriott, and they have both also decided to withdraw. That kills the petition, though there wasn't much life left in it anyway: on Tuesday, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said that the petition was "contrary" to a basic principle laid out in the Communications Act. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel was more blunt about Marriott's proposal, directly calling it "a bad idea."
Marriott says in a statement that it will not block Wi-Fi signals at any hotel that it manages, which is probably a good policy because, as the FCC says, that's also the law. Marriott does plan to continue looking for ways to manage security threats to its networks, but it says that it plans to do so in ways "that do not involve blocking our guests' use of their Wi-Fi devices."