Southern Company
Utilities
33
out of 100. Number 372 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Southern Company does well
- Arbitration 0 of 20. Nothing found.
- Renewals 0 of 20. Nothing found.
- No forced arbitration and no class-action waiver anywhere in the corporate terms — disputes go to Georgia state or federal courts, so you keep your right to sue and to join class actions.
- No auto-renew or cancellation traps: the corporate sites have no paid subscription products, and marketing emails are explicitly opt-in ('we may ask if you would like us to send you marketing or customer service materials').
- No knowing collection of personal information from children under 13, with a commitment to delete it quickly if collected.
- The privacy statement explicitly carves out text-messaging opt-in data and consent from all third-party sharing ('this information will not be shared with any third parties').
They can rewrite the rules for using their websites at any time without telling you, and the new rules take effect the moment they post them — just continuing to visit the site counts as you agreeing to whatever changed.
The fine print
6 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
-
They can rewrite the rules for using their websites at any time without telling you, and the new rules take effect the moment they post them — just continuing to visit the site counts as you agreeing to whatever changed.
We may at any time and without prior notice revise these Terms by updating this posting. All changes to the Terms are effective immediately when we post them. Your continued use of the Web Sites following posting of changes to these Terms signifies that you accept such changes.
-
Your cookie data from their site can be handed to third-party advertising partners so you can be served targeted ads.
The Web Site located at www.southerncompany.com may also share certain information such as cookie data (as discussed more specifically below) with third-party advertising partners. This information would enable you to view advertisements that they believe will be of interest to you.
-
Anything you send them as feedback — ideas, suggestions, questions — becomes their property outright, not confidential, and they can use or republish it however they like.
Any comments or materials sent to us regarding any Contents found on the Web Sites, including, without limitation, feedback data, ideas, graphics, questions, comments or suggestions (collectively 'Feedback'), will not be treated as confidential (unless otherwise specified by our Privacy Statement) and will become our exclusive property. We have no obligation of any kind with respect to such Feedback and will be free to reproduce, use, disclose, exhibit, display, transform, create derivative works and distribute the Feedback.
-
They reserve the right to monitor everything you do on their websites and hand that information over to federal government agencies.
In an effort to protect the security of our critical infrastructure, any use of or information with respect to the Web Sites may be monitored and disclosed to federal authorities or agencies.
-
If something on their website harms you — malware, outages, errors — they owe you nothing beyond what you paid to access the site, which for nearly everyone is $0, even if they knew the harm was possible.
IN NO EVENT WILL WE OR OUR SUBSIDIARIES, OR ANY OF OUR RESPECTIVE LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, OFFICERS OR DIRECTORS, BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, UNDER ANY LEGAL THEORY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OR ACCESS, OR INABILITY TO USE OR ACCESS, THE WEB SITES... EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES... TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES, AND CAUSES OF ACTION... EXCEED THE AMOUNT PAID BY YOU, IF ANY, FOR ACCESSING THE WEB SITES.
-
On their gas utility sites, anything you upload — photos, text, videos — they get a permanent, worldwide, transferable license to use, adapt, and exploit forever, with no royalties to you.
By uploading User Content, you grant the Company and its affiliates a royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, transferrable license to reproduce, display, perform, create derivative works from, and otherwise exploit the User Content.
How these were found
Documents relied on: Southern Company General Terms and Conditions of Use (marked 'Revised 11/03/2025') and Southern Company Privacy Statement ('Established September 2018 / Revised June 2025'), plus Southern Company Gas Supplemental Terms and Conditions (Southern Company Gas subsidiaries' sites). All fetched directly from southerncompany.com on Oct 1, 2026 — no mirrors or archive copies were needed. SCOPE LIMITATION: Southern Company is a holding company; the actual customer-facing billing/account terms for its regulated utilities (Georgia Power, Alabama Power, Mississippi Power, Southern Company Gas/Nicor, etc.) live in separate subsidiary documents and were NOT scored here — only the corporate web documents were reviewed. No arbitration or class-action-waiver clause exists anywhere in the corporate General Terms; they could not be scored on what is absent.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.