Does anyone care that the customer agreements for Verizon's and Comcast's broadband services say You Can't Run a Server? (and We Reserve the Right To Change Any and Every Aspect of Your Online Access and This Agreement Without Notice?)

I know that internet users don't necessarily want freedom of action.  Heck, the internet looks dark and dangerous to many people.  But in light of the Markoff and Waldrop books I exclaimed over earlier this week, I'm feeling bolder.  How can the provision of online access be so easily constrained?  There isn't a whisper of a mainstream media murmur about this. 

Maybe it doesn't matter -- maybe running a server is something that only extremists would do.  But don't we want to defend the (lawful) actions of extremists? 

And if these limitations stem from bandwidth worries, why aren't there concerns about the absence of significant players who can both provide symmetric broadband access and support the freedom to run servers?  Why not have cheap "no server" broadband available to most of us, and slightly more expensive "you can run a server" broadband available for other (ordinary, non-enterprise) people? 

And how about those easily-amendable subscriber agreements?  The argument must be that Verizon-SBC/Comcast-TW have no incentive to make their customers angry -- so they'll be reasonable and we needn't worry.

But I'm worried anyway.

++++++ 

Verizon 3.6(E):  If you subscribe to Broadband Service. . .You may not use the Broadband Service to host any type of server personal or commercial in nature.

Comcast 5(b):  Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the Service is for personal and non-commercial use only and you agree not to use the Service for operation as an Internet service provider, a server site for ftp, telnet, rlogin, e-mail hosting, "web hosting" or other similar applications, for any business enterprise, or as an end-point on a non-Comcast local area network or wide area network.

(by the way, how can Comcast ensure that no subscriber runs a "business enterprise"?  I'll bet lots of people do business using Comcast broadband.)