The Information Society

We buy our telephone line and our Internet connection from Telefonica - very much like BT, the privatised ex state telephone company. Telefonica has a dreadful reputation in Spain though I've had generally good dealings with them.

We recently had an automatic and "free" upgrade from a 1mb to a 3mb connection. When the first bill of this new regime came (long after the money had been liberated from our bank account) I noticed there was a new item - the Internet Security Pack. It looks, from checking the Telefonica website, as though this is part of the package for the 3mb service. In effect our free upgrade is actually costing 3.50€ per month more.

Just as it happens our annual subscription to Norton anti-virus is due to expire in 4 days time and the anti-virus package that Telefonica include in their service is McAfee which sounds reputable enough. The price for either service is more or less the same. So I thought I would take the line of least resistance and simply accept the Telefonica software and let the Norton subscription lapse.

I should have known better. I'm not exactly computer shy but it must have taken me three hours to fight my way through the labyrinthine Telefonica website to get the thing loaded up.

The real point is that this just happened. No notification in the bill. No emails to inform me of the changes and it took me several minutes of searching the bill to find how to decline this new service should I so wish.