A Marriott Hotel fined $600,000 after the Federal Communications Commission found out that the hotel's employees had fined their customers for using their Wi-Fi network because they had blocked their customer's personal Wi-Fi networks.
According to USA Today, the FCC has discovered after an investigation that the employees of the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville disabled the Wi-Fi networks of their costumers at its conference facilities and instead charged each guest over $250 to $1,000 depending on the device they used to access the hotel's network.
"It is unacceptable for any hotel to intentionally disable personal hotspots while also charging consumers and small businesses high fees to use the hotel's own Wi-Fi network," Travis LeBlanc, Chief of the FCC Enforcement Bureau said in a statement regarding the Marriott Hotel fined $600,000 story. This practice puts consumers in the untenable position of either paying twice for the same service or forgoing Internet access altogether."
Marriott Hotel fined $600,000 reports state that the investigation on the shady business of the hotel took place after authorities received a complaint in March 2013 from someone who attended a function at the resort.
That someone reported informed FCC that the Marriott Hotel was "jamming mobile hotspots so that you can't use them in the convention space."
Upon investigation, the FCC discovered that the hotel employees used "features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system at the Gaylord Opryland to contain and/or de- authenticate guest-created Wi-Fi hotspot access points in the conference facilities."
Meanwhile, in response to the Marriott Hotel fined $600,000 story, a Marriott representative insisted that the actions of their Gaylord Opryland employees are very "lawful" and that there is nothing wrong with it, reported NBC News.
"Marriott has a strong interest in ensuring that when our guests use our Wi-Fi service, they will be protected from rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft," the company rep said in a statement.
"Like many other institutions and companies in a wide variety of industries, including hospitals and universities, the Gaylord Opryland protected its Wi-Fi network by using FCC-authorized equipment provided by well-known, reputable manufacturers," the rep continued.
"We believe that the Opryland's actions were lawful. We will continue to encourage the FCC to pursue a rulemaking in order to eliminate the ongoing confusion resulting from today's action and to assess the merits of its underlying policy," the rep concluded.
Marriott Hotel has also expressed that it is willing to pay the $600,000 fine, adding that they are now working on improving how its employees are monitoring and using its Wi-Fi network at the Gaylord Opryland.
The FCC can expect an update or a progress report every three months for the next three years until both parties are satisfied with how the hotel is handling its Wi-Fi service.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
