I believe it's only temporary... 7 days is common for a feedback ban... if theres a considerable amount of cheating and more offensive feedback... I believe it can be made longer and quite possibly permanant. but the permanant bans i believe so far from what I've seen and heard is mostly from cheating and Bungies "switchboard lighting up" is what gets your account permanantly banned. note : it is only the account that is banned. therefore these kids are not exactly permanantly banned as Frankie pointed out.... all you need to do is "buy" another account(which i find repulsive). this tells me they are not banning anything other than the account. In my opinion, the xbox should be banned according to IP, or the modem should not be able to connect them to live. but we all know this will NEVER happen. therefore these permanant bans are meaningless in the eyes of many honest players. If they banned the xbox.... guess what... they can't get another $50.00 bucks off that box for live..... Oh wait maybe i'm onto something now. Ban the Xbox....then the player has to "Buy" a new xbox as well as the player has to "buy" a new account. Now that in my opinion is marketing brilliance. Please read my sig.