Glad they don't send out fax spam, they would be insisting we print out and carefully read all the junk faxes they send us. Turning our equipment into a printing press to print their advertising for them at no cost to them. Or maybe they do?

But if Rackspace is the ISP, and the ISP presumably has other customers, doesn't a DDOS often affect other customers of that ISP? I think so. Rackspace would have to mitigate the attack, no fair trying to charge one customer. Unless they took on a well known target customer, that is.

Let me tell a story. Some years ago (long ago, really) I was working on some antispam stuff.
There was a popular free DNSBL that was being DDOSed all the darned time, this affected people's mail, including my customers. Since it was a free list they had little money to do high cost anti-DDOS stuff. Understandable.

I contacted one of the big distributed hosting providers, a name you would know.
I asked one of their top people if the company would agree to provide hosting for that DNSBL, for the good of the internet. As a way of helping. The processes involved would be a tiny blip for a company their size. Others would maintain it, they just had to allow the queries. A tiny blip of DNS lookups for incoming mail.

I got an immediate response that this was an interesting request but they couldn't get involved in anything that would draw unwanted attention from bad people, because it could affect their shareholders. Understandable.
I responded that I would appreciate them helping but I understand. And how long would it be before they were themselves targeted and extorted by criminals? I got no response.

It wasn't long, I think less than a year they did have some criminals attempt to extort them under threat of DDOS. It was in the news.
I am sure they were able to handle it internally, they were big and had a big distributed system. But this just shows, you have to help if you can, or what happens when they come for you?

Like I said, I understand they don't want to take on a known target. But the stuff in the OP was nothing like that.

I bet, but only since you are in the UK.
We are talking about how companies (like Microsoft discussed in this thread) are loathe to have people suing them, so have instituted forced arbitration and the class action waiver.
Naturally you don't have that problem in the UK like we do in the US.
You have loser pays!
I imagine it's much more dangerous suing someone in the UK than it is here.
Here, you get a lawyer on contingent fee, and it costs you nothing. You sue, most of the time you get a settlement, and the defendant pays.
In the UK, however, if you are outlawyered, have abuse of discovery, have witnesses lying, there could be a million reasons, and you ultimately are not able to win the case you have to pay the other side's legal fees.
That doesn't happen here in the US. Lawsuits are FREE here!
Not that loser pays is a panacea. Notice that thing about the the tvshack guy, Richard O'Dwyer, he is really being dragged through it over there. All he ran was a search engine.

Hah. We had some connected to a PDP-10.
And I had a room full of 029 keypunch machines for the old CDC6400.
Brings back memories.

Nah, it's the same thing.

When I bought the Xbox 360 I got Xbox live at the same time because that was what I bought into when I bought the hardware. Access to the network. I still have access to the network but on not nearly as favorable terms.

Are you all this quick to give up your rights in the UK? We don't go for that in the US.

Ya know, the Model M keyboard cords came any way you wanted them.
I have some with short cords like you describe, and I have some with cords 10' long. They made whatever you needed. It's not a replacement for a wireless keyboard, but they do serve different purposes.
You want clicky, definite keypresses and you don't mind the sound, or you want to be able to sit back on the couch.

What's interesting about that is IBM made nearly all the typewriters, and they made those keycaps to last because that was the right thing to do.
They didn't do it because of competition- they had almost none. They owned 90% of the market.
They didn't do it because anyone demanded it.
They did it because it was the product they wanted to make. Designed to last, to perform better than the market even demanded.
Contrast that to how things are designed and made today.
Cheaper, obsolescent, designed to fail sooner rather than later. To make you buy a new one. It's sad really.

You probably made the ones for the IBM typewriters, I remember, "Double shot molded".
You see, our forefathers knew what was necessary, they made things to last.
Now, you buy a keyboard and in 6 months the home row keys are worn off.
30 or 40 years ago you'd buy a washer, dryer or refrigerator and in 25 years it was still working.
Now, you're lucky if it lasts 5 years. They know it too, they have MBAs at the factory working on cheapening the parts to make them fail, so you will buy another.
Whereas years ago, they'd *never* have sold you something that would not last. Our whole society is like that. It's sad.

As I sit here typing this on a circa 1984 IBM Model M Clicky Keyboard!
The finest keyboard ever made.
I have had this one for >10 years.
None of the keyboard markings have worn off. Heh. Yes, you can still find them around.

I got it twice, and had to agree twice. I didn't try cancel.

I bought the system to get the online services too.
Now I am being cheated out of that.
Not that I can't still use it, I can. But not on the same terms in effect when I bought it.
Not what I call fair.
I don't use analogies in /., but what if you bought a quad core computer 2 years ago, and they sent out a signal that disabled three of those cores unless you pay a monthly fee? You think that'd be ok? And there were no rules when you bought the thing, or none that affected you. And now there are. And they already got your money.

One of the few competitive parts of the healthcare device industry, breast implants.
You go in the hospital for cancer treatment, *no one* can tell you how much it is gonna cost.
Go in the same hospital for breast implants, they can tell you to the penny.
No insurance.
If insurance were banned and you had to pay for your own healthcare you would have providers offering better service for less. With insurance involvement that just never happens. You get what we got now. Worse service for much more.

I don't think that's an appropriate solution.
When they sold me the thing it was on one basis. I agreed to terms when I paid them.
Now they are forcing a change to our relationship.
I can agree to it or I am losing what I bought, from them. Not exactly fair.
I have to say if a company wants to change the relationship we have in the middle, I should have the right to negotiate those terms, or disagree with them. What if I think the price they charged me three years ago is unsatisfactory under the new agreement, but satisfactory under the old agreement?
I should be able to stay with the old agreement, or maybe I will agree to the new agreement if they send me, say, $125,000. for that waiver of rights. That sounds fair to me.

Uh, not really. I was presented with a clickable forced arbitration last week by Microsoft, for the Xbox network. I could agree or not use the service, which would essentially mean my 2 Xbox 360s, all the games, all the optional hardware would become nearly worthless. Not an option for me.
Congress should just make those forced arbitration agreements illegal.

Probably. When this came up I looked on the Microsoft online store to see if I could order some hardware that needed that driver.
Then, I could place a support call and Microsoft would have to deal with it.
Alas, I didn't find anything that would need that driver for sale at this time by Microsoft.