When technical support sends you an e-mail, do they have the right to tell you to keep the information they give you confidential? That's a question I've heard a number of times, particularly from Linksys customers.
A reader who recently purchased a Linksys Wireless B broadband router was quite satsified with the device's 128-bit WEP encryption. "Installation and everything went fine initially," the reader wrote. "I realize there are problems with WEP, but it's all that was available and it does help deter 'snatch-and-grabbers' and 'war drivers.' Then, a couple of weeks ago, my cable company called. Apparently, there was a security issue -- they didn't give details -- with my particular Linksys router. They would appreciate it if I would upgrade my firmware ASAP. Oh, and here's the Linksys Web page where you can download the upgrade. Fine, so I upgrade."
After he upgraded the firmware, he was surprised to see the interface was quite different from the version he had been using. "While climbing up my new learning curve on this new interface, I realize I can't find any place to manage the device's WEP capability. Remember, I had working WEP before I upgraded the firmware. WEP was prominently advertised on the packaging and I wouldn't have bought a wireless router that didn't have it. Now, I can't find it."
The reader filed a problem report on the Linksys website and soon received an e-mail in response from a support rep. Linksys was aware of the problem, he was told, and hoped to correct it in a future upgrade of the firmware. He should check the website frequently to see if new releases of the firmware would fix his problem.
Linksys' answer did not make the reader very happy. "Wait a minute! I bought and paid for a router with WEP," he noted. "I upgraded that device's software at the request of my cable company using Linksys-provided materials, and now I have a router without WEP encryption. There was no warning that if I upgraded, my router would no longer have WEP capability. These guys have stolen my WEP!"
But the reader was even unhappier with what was written at the bottom of the message from Linksys support:
"This correspondence is considered confidential and any reproduction for the purpose of public disclosure is forbidden without written permission by the author signed above."
That line had the opposite effect on the reader from what Linksys might have hoped. "If they think they can intimidate me with a legally groundless threat like that, they have another think coming," the reader wrote. "They are, of course, attempting to keep me from doing just what I'm doing now, making their unbelievably poor attitude public."
Since other readers have complained about the identical confidentiality language before, I assume it is standard boilerplate for Linksys support. But the reader's reaction is also pretty standard, because people don't like being told they can't reveal information they think others have the right to know. So does Linksys have the right to say their support e-mails are confidential? Perhaps, but I don't think it's doing them much good.
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10:41:34 AM 
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