Slashdot Log In
AT&T Rewrites Privacy Policy
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Jun 21, 2006 01:21 PM
from the wow-just-wow dept.
from the wow-just-wow dept.
VikingThunder writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that AT&T has revamped its privacy policy, in an effort to head off future consumer lawsuits, with changes taking effect this Friday. AT&T is introducing a new policy that gives it more 'latitude' when it comes to sharing your browsing history with government agencies. Notable changes include notification that AT&T will track viewing habits of customers of its new video services Homezone and U-Verse, which is forbidden for cable and satellite companies, as well as explicitly stating that the customer's data belongs to the company: 'While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T. As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'"
Related Stories
[+]
Ask Slashdot: Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later? 1272 comments
gabec asks: "This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. Last week my girlfriend bought four peaches. An alert came up stating that peaches were a restricted item and she had to identify herself before being able to purchase such a decidedly high quantity of the dangerous fruit. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?" The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
It's time to take action. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly the treachery that leads to companies going under...You f*ck the consumer, you get f*cked right back.
I say call up your local congressman/woman and tell them that you want the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 to include provisions for all methods of distributing content, including IPTV. Also explain to them that your privacy is important to you and that you want them to support as many privacy bills as they can.
Of course, if that doesn't work, just ditch AT&T. I know there is enough competition out there to cripple them. Alas, you might end up paying a bit more, but think of it as the price you pay for privacy, and consumer-friendliness.
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently the mantra If you are not a terrorist/paedophile/Mexican, you have nothing to hide and you'll have no privacy when the terrorists win seems to be the flavor of the day.
Or as one prominent FoxNews commentator puts it, the American People would rather the Govt. collected their records than their remains.
As the parent (bleh-of-the-huns) said, such a move will not impact ATT's bottom line. If anything, it will save them bandwidth costs as those customers that tend to be privacy-aware also tend to consume more of their all-you-can-eat subscription plans than the sheeople customers.
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Informative)
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ain't it funny how folks hate regulation until they want something regulated?
Welcome to the left side of the aisle, buddy. I hope you don't hate Liberals. You're one of us now.
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Informative)
I dunno...but, if you want to make their tracking data useless for you...start trying to encrypt ALL your internet traffic.
Grant it....it will slow you up a bit, but, will make you far less traceable. Set up anon. browsing, set up nym accounts for email...that will help your mail at least be encrypted, even from those who don't know how to use pgp.
- Tor - For anonymous browsing [eff.org]
- Freenet [sourceforge.net]
- Anonymous Email (look for Nym section) [faqs.org]
- Free Proxy servers (some https and anon listed) [proxy4free.com]
- Set up and use Mixmaster anon remailers [sourceforge.net]
In general, also start trying to use SSH and vpns for most everything you do....it is a bit slower and PITA, but, might be worth it in the end, considering this new policy, and the govt's recent attempts to get ALL ISP's to "voluntarilly" keep all internet access records stored for 2 years.Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Interesting)
I also operate my own mail server/domain, which most of my friends and family have accounts on. I allow ONLY SSL-protected connections, so no plaintext POP3 passwords flying about. As far as they're concerned it's only 1 extra checkbox to click so it's no big deal. SMTP+AUTH+SSL for sending.
Granted, that won't help for sending messages to the outside as they transit unencrypted at some point, but at least we can email each other in relative security. If the NSA wastes a few weeks of processor time just to find out what my lunch plans were last Friday, serves 'em right.
Grant it....it will slow you up a bit
Unless you're talking about initial setup, at the bandwidth levels that most consumer accounts have, I have never seen an appreciable slowdown due to encryption. My modest 266-Mhz router can saturate a 3Mb link with VPN traffic.
Even on my laptop where I do full-disk encryption (GELI on FreeBSD -- built in and it was cake to set up), I can still get upwards of 20MB/s disk I/O, which isn't significantly worse than the el-cheapo drive that's in there can manage without it.
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously though, the reason these apps haven't taken-off is because they face a chicken-and-egg problem: they aren't standards de facto or de jure.
I've tried getting my friends to use encrypted AIM, via GAIM, Trillian, etc.. Of course they don't use it, (except for another Slashdotter friend of mine): it's "too hard" and (so they say) if you have nothing to hide, then what's the concern over privacy about? (and then I sigh: "He who does not learn from the past, is doomed to repeat it...")
I have relatives who are privacy nuts, and one close to me is even somewhat technically-competent and very well-educated. Yet, mention "PGP", and his eyes glaze over.
If even the privacy-concerned intelligentsia don't want to put forth the effort to protect their privacy, then isn't the battle, as a defacto matter, basically lost?
I think privacy is, has, and will always be, a lost cause. It takes:
Few people outside of many computer scientists, and some in the hard sciences and math, and maybe a few lawyers, are competent to fully-grasp the implications of privacy loss. Most people are not so intelligent, nor nearly patient enough to understand the subject -- and so, most people don't give a rat's ass.
The reality of privacy around the world is that Scott McNeely was right some 10 years ago, when he proclaimed that "privacy is dead." I cannot think of a single period in time in which the U.S. or Britain have undergone periods in which privacy could be said to have generally *increased*. [1] Germany arguably improved after the fall of East German socialism, having eliminated the Stasi in the process, but that's like switching from a Yugo to a GM-made econocar for one's personal transportation -- it's a big improvement, but still very far from what is wanted.
Those of us who care about privacy can and do use such applications. The rest of the unwashed masses will be tracked and eventually hunted-down by governments, corporations, and sophisticated black-market criminal organizations like the goddamn cattle they are (and, if East German, Iraqi, Chinese, North Korean, and American communist history -- as well as the history of various black market businesses (drug cartels, the Mafia, etc.) -- is any indicator, murdered much the same).
It doesn't help either that privacy apps have typically not worked particularly-well. Freenet is a great example: it hogs RAM and CPU and in the end, content-retrieval is painfully-slow. Not to mention that Freenet, like PGP, is basically a big red flashing neon sign to law-enforcement suggesting a high probability of illegal activity (and I think those of us who genuinely run/ran it for the political purpose of keeping free-speech and privacy alive really are/were in the minority -- just as those with whom you can talk intelligently to on USENET, or anywhere else on the Internet or in real life, are in the minority)...
[1] Then again, how does one measure privacy? By the number of surveillance cameras, public and private? By the number of records per individual being analyzed out of databases? By the number of doors kicked-down on the basis of information obtained via a breach of privacy? By th
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anytime anybody calls me using AT&T, my phone number appears in those records. And since I am not an AT&T customer, I have not agreed to their privacy policy. Is there any legal remedy for this?
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Insightful)
All "privacy policies" are bullshit. They all say at the end of them something in legalese like: "We reserve the right to change our mind at any time".
Personally, I believe that _WE_ as individuals should create our own privacy policy and make businesses/corps sign it.
The problem is that no business or corporation or whatever would sign our privacy policy. The rights of individuals have been officially lost as far as I can tell.
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is typical SBC tactics they have been pulling over the years.... They just thought that by changing their name nobody would notice.
remember when you hear AT&T you are not hearing the AT&T from the past but SBC trying to hide from their reputation.
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's a nice theory. In practice, it doesn't mean a damned thing. Cranky consumers can't do anything to a company like AT&T, not really.
If you explicitly refuse this new privacy policy, do you really believe that will cause them to purge your records? No, they're gonna retain what they have already even if it violates their previous policy.
What if you can't change? Live in a place where there is exactly one provider of broadband? Think you'll give up your high-speed just to try and punish AT&T? (And if you do, they're gonna keep what they have.)
Now that they've said this, and now that they're gonna track everything, your assent to their privacy policy will become irrelevant.
Since they operate much of the backbone, what is to stop them from passing on information about people with whom they don't actually have a current/past business relationship? Nothing, they'll still be passing on their routing data which covers people who could not possibly have consented to the privacy policy. International data gets routed through AT&Ts trunks.
Hell, I live in a whole different country (Canada), and my cell-phone company (Rogers) is associated with AT&T. Which probably means that some if not all of my own damned information is probably going to flow south of the border. Which fscking Congressman am I going to fskcing contact to complain about this? Oh, wait, that would be absolutely fsking noone, that's who.
Do you think the government is going to legislate/intervene/say anything? They want this kind of things more than ever. If a company makes you sign a contract that says "we can do anything we want", the current administration has only to gain from this. They're more than happy to extend the territoriatility of their laws with little regard -- despite that if any other country tried to extend their laws in the same way, the US would be screaming bloody murder.
AT&T's decision to do this affects way more people than the number of people who are going to be asked to agree to this privacy policy. It's probably going affect me personally, and I don't have a business relationship with them. And probably a whole lot of other people.
Parent
Re:Effective tool (Score:4, Insightful)
The NSA terrorist surveillance program approved by President Clinton II is an effective tool for law enforcement to identify and break up terrorist activity before it can can metastasize again on these shores and cause Okalahoma-style death and destruction. A large majority of the American electorate approves this action. By all means write to your representative on this issue. That is the American way. Then take your place on the minority side of the issue while President Clinton II thanks your half of the Party for giving her the tools she needs to kick the bloody hell out of the Second Amendment fanatics.
(And after 8 years of Republicans arguing against Stasi-like surveillance of fundie Christian groups, the Democratic wing of the Party will power over to the Republican wing of the Party, and the ratchet having gone another 360 degrees tighter...)
Parent
Re:Effective tool (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you equate a free press with terrorism or goverment employees with terrorists, I'm afraid I cannot see the connection.
We are repeating history. In the 1960s, the goverment expanded its role in domestic surveillance in order to fight "left wing terrorism" by radical groups like the Weathermen. Instead, the FBI spent most of their time spying on Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Congressional opponents, and under Nixon people on his personal "enemies list". The Church Commission recommended much of the restrictions that the Patriot Act trampled over in order to prevent government surveillance on citizens who were using legitimate means of opposing government policy.
Now, we removed these restrictions, and guess what? The government is again using its powers to spy on you and me, and not so much on "Islamic Terrorists". After all, the Islamic terrorists are a pretty smart bunch and probably already figured out not to use electronic communications to contact each other directly. Most of their communication now takes place on websites outside of the United States jurisdiction and most of the conversations are encrypted and coded. Users are anonymous and use public computers in various Internet Cafes making it almost impossible to track down these users. Remote logins, foreign anonymizers, and Tor networks make even domestic users hard to trace.
Parent
Re:Effective tool (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? I didn't realize that, since I have not heard of one terrorist activity being prevented by the NSA. After all, what are wiretapped grandmas going to do?
I have no problem with wiretaps, if they are warranted. These days, it is not difficult to get the warrant...you could just show some evidence that the person may be linked to a terrorist organization, and wahlah, you have a warrant. All that I ask is that the get the warrant first, or at least get one period.
Oh, and if you can show me where this wiretapping has been more successful than traditional techniques, I'd be all ears. Until then I will continue to not jump on the 'kill the jihad' bandwagon. This country needs at least a few sane heads.
Parent
Re:Effective tool (Score:5, Funny)
you could just show some evidence that the person may be linked to a terrorist organization, and wahlah, you have a warrant
TERRORIST KEYWORD PROBABILITY: 92.89% IP LOGGED. FEDERAL FISTING IMMINENT.Parent
Re:Effective tool (Score:5, Insightful)
There's also the fun stat that they've turned down 5 of 19,000 requests.
If the Administration can't work within a system that allows them to ask permission after the fact and have a 99.9736842% chance of approval, just what are they hiding?
Parent
Re:It's time to take action. (Score:5, Funny)
Fixed.
Parent
Any teeth to these? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Any teeth to these? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Furthermore (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
a big BEND OVER to any percieved competitors (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Any teeth to these? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Any teeth to these? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Why does contract law allow this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Well, I would not be surprised... (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminding you once again... (Score:5, Insightful)
(To be fair, the linked policy does have a nod towards "materially different" changes to the privacy policy. But guess who decides what "materially different" is...?)
Time for the Privacy Act (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you see, AT&T is doing this for you, the valued customer. It is in your best interests. Don't you want to be kept safe from the evil0rz criminals?
In Canada, the Privacy Act restricts the ability of corporations to share private information. Admittedly it's not perfect, but it appears to be better than what exists in the United States.
Re:Time for the Privacy Act (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not all. The wording in the old privacy policy said:
the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process to the extent required and/or permitted by law"
New policy:
the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process"
Looks like the law isn't important to them anymore.
Parent
How is this legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How is this legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T.
This really summarizes the legal problems with privacy here in the US. Although the data that people collect on you is "personal to you", it almost always, legally, belongs to whoever collected it. The hodgepodge of Federal and state laws doesn't help. For example, here in Virginia, my medical records are the property of my doctor. It was only relatively recently that legislation was passed that gives me the statutory right to see my own medical records.
This also relates directly to the more-or-less careless approach many firms take to protecting personal data. If the data belongs to them, they are that much more insulated from any legal consquences of losing it.
Bruce Schneier [schneier.com] has discussed this in a number of his blog posts and essays.
Parent
Re:How is this legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, 10 years ago the only people worried about privacy were those crazy militia guys in Montana. Nowadays, they not only seem sane, but increasingly look like geniuses!
Parent
Re:How is this legal? (Score:4, Funny)
I am not a lawyer, but from what I have seen on the web, it is perfectly ok and legal provided they don't include "Nyah, Nyah Nyah, Nyah Nyah.", "Neener Neener, or "Smoochy Boochy" at the end of the policy.
Parent
So, does this mean we can get out of our contracts (Score:4, Interesting)
Ouch. (Score:4, Funny)
Perfect opportunity for me to get off my duff. (Score:5, Interesting)
For those in the US, 1-800-222-0300 option 6 gets you where you need to go. Expect a 30 minute (or more) wait time.
Fuckers...
Contract Violation (Score:4, Interesting)
If I used AT&T for anything covered by that privacy "policy", I'd sue them for unilaterally changing the terms of the contract without my consent. If I were a lawyer, I'd construct a class of everyone whose contract they're breaching.
Unless the old privacy policy says "AT&T can unilaterally change any terms of this policy without notice at any time", in which case I'd be a fool to think it was anything but an invitation to screw me whenever they want.
Relationship to NSA Tracking (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/06/21/att_
You have to wonder if the two stories are related.
sheep (Score:5, Insightful)
i hate regulation...
privacy policy...
etc.
are you people stupid? you must be, the government just announced it spent 30 million of your money to buy exactly this type of information. in my mind thats the ultimate indignation, they broke the law, and operated against my interests using my cash. if you're going to sit around and just carp about privacy policies rather than demanding serious reforms AND regulations in the laws governing personal information then thats exactly what you are...
Re:sheep (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point, but did you see American Idol this season? It was awesome!
Parent
Re:sheep (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
"you must be, the government just announced it spent 30 million of your money to buy exactly this type of information. in my mind thats the ultimate indignation, they broke the law, and operated against my interests using my cash."
Yes, we must be stupid because the government did something we don't like.
"if you're going to sit around and just carp about privacy policies rather than demanding serious reforms AND regulations in the laws governing personal information then thats exactly what you are..."
Well, it sure as hell beats sitting around and carping about people carping about the problem. How do you know that no one posting here isn't making serious efforts to get these problems fixed? How do you know whether or not I met with my NJ state senator last week regarding this issue? How do you know that I haven't been calling my US Senator to discuss, following up with letters?
You don't know jack about what actions other slahdot contributors are doing, so pipe down.
In short, by your definition of stupid, you're twice as stupid as the people you complain about. Why don't you take some action instead of sitting on your rear? Or even better, organize people to take action as a group instead of whinging about the complainers?
Parent
privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, their "privacy" policy is they can do whatever they please without limit with your information.
Colluding with the government (Score:5, Insightful)
Forgetting about hypocrisy for a moment, there was a time when the US would advocate and to an extent even represent personal freedoms in most other parts of the world. Now it's all empty talk in inaugural speeches about the great USA is helping oppressed people regain their freedoms but as it happens most of those people desperately needing american support just happen to be oppressed by so-called allies in this "war of terror, countries like China etc.
For those of us who actually live under undemocratic governments, the fact that american telecoms are helping the government track people and their interests is making it painfully easy for other freedom-hating regimes to impose similar or worse policies which only help chill the personal freedoms even further.
Corporate Espionage (Score:5, Interesting)
So lets see:
If I work at AT&T and a headhunter calls me at work or at home the corporation to check my phone records to "protect its legitimate business interests".
If I am a competitor of AT&T's, AT&T can find out what VC's I've been calling to "protect its legitimate business interests".
If I am sueing AT&T, AT&T can check my phone records to find out when I called my lawyer to "protect its legitimate business interests".
If I sign a contract with AT&T to provide me with my competitors phone records AT&T can do it to "protect its legitimate business interests".
You know if I were in charge of secruity for a major corporation I would be extremely worried about this.
Public wireless for anything illegal (Score:4, Insightful)
Small Business and Corporations? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every concerned citizen and individual should rail against these changes in their policy - even if you don't use their service now. Write to them and explain, calmly and rationally, why you would never use their service and how you will do everything in your power to explain to family and friends why THEY should not use their service either. Dissatisfied people talk to loads of other people. Pissed off people talk to loads of other people. ANYTHING negative gets spread, on average, 10 times more than positive things do. When was the last time someone you know went to the doctor and said they had a great visit? Probably can't remember that, but I can guarantee that _someone_ you know has been to the doctor/dentist/etc. in the past 2 weeks and has vented a complaint about "I had to wait FOREVER to even see the doctor and he was only in there for 5 minutes" or something along those lines. Will a write-in campaign from both people who are on their service as well as those who aren't work? MAYBE. Yes, capital maybe since is always an If. Corporations tend to be a little more responsive to loads of negative press and negative write-ins than the goverment of the USA seems to be. If a good many small businesses and larger businesses/corporations jump on the write-in bandwagon too (especially those affected by HIPAA, Sa-Ox and other "privacy" concerns) then I'd give it a good chance.
Not to mention who did NOT see this coming? Any company that uses the frigging DEATH STAR as a corporate logo has to be aiming for world domination somehow
WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
As many erudite posters have pointed out this is nothing more than an astroturfing campaign by big telcos.. why is slashdot giving these people ad space?
Re:VOIP modem to Out of country ISP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Thank you! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd imagine the freekin' Hand of God coming out of the sky and obliterating AT&T headquarters might spur them to make the change just a wee bit faster.
Parent
Re:In other words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Soul? Integrity? We're talking about a friggin' corporation, they don't have souls or integrity. If the steering comittee/board/whatever votes that it is in the best interests of the shareholders/themselves to do something, that's about the full extent of actual morality which applies.
A company could have a mission statement which mandates that the board behave within a proscribed set of moral codes (like "The Body Shop" not testing on animals), but one should never actually acribe moral actions to a corporation. Least of all, one as large as AT&T.
Parent