Marriott International has agreed to pay a fine for one of its hotels’ illegal blocking of guests’ own Wi-Fi connections and then charging up to $1,000 to connect to the hotel Wi-Fi system.
Federal Communications Commission handed down the fine to the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville after a complaint by a meeting delegate that the hotel was jamming devices.
Marriott was then charging conference organizers and exhibitors between $250 and $1,000 each to access the Gaylord’s Wi-Fi connection.
Despite Marriott’s plea that the action was not illegal, the FCC slapped a $600,000 fine on the company and instructed it to halt the practice in all hotels.
Marriott maintains it blocked external Wi-Fi hotspots to safeguard network security against ‘rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft.’
"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’s enforcement bureau said in a statement.
"This practice puts consumers in the untenable position of either paying twice for the same service or forgoing Internet access altogether."
