AT&T To Match Google Fiber In Kansas City, Charge More If You Want Privacy 227
An anonymous reader writes: When Google Fiber started bringing gigabit internet to cities around the U.S., we wondered how the incumbent ISPs would respond. Now we know: AT&T has announced they will match Google Fiber's gigabit offerings in Kansas City. Of course, there are some caveats. First, AT&T's rollout may stop as it fights the Obama administration over net neutrality. Not that it would be a nationwide rollout anyway: "AT&T does not plan to offer the ultra-fast Internet lines to every home in the market. Rather, he said the company would calculate where demand is strongest and the investment in stringing new cables promised a decent return."
There are also some interesting pricing concerns. The company plans to charge $70/month for gigabit service, but that's a subsidized price. Subsidized by what, you ask? Your privacy. AT&T says if you want to opt out of letting them track your browsing history, you'll have to pay $29 more per month. They say your information is used to serve targeted advertising, and includes any links you follow and search terms you enter.
There are also some interesting pricing concerns. The company plans to charge $70/month for gigabit service, but that's a subsidized price. Subsidized by what, you ask? Your privacy. AT&T says if you want to opt out of letting them track your browsing history, you'll have to pay $29 more per month. They say your information is used to serve targeted advertising, and includes any links you follow and search terms you enter.
Please note: (Score:5, Insightful)
So, there's the $100/month 'Yup, definitely spying on you' tier where "your Internet traffic is routed to AT&T's Internet Preferences web browsing and analytics platform"(good luck finding out exactly what that entails; but it's probably bad); or the $70/month 'Ominous and vague "other purposes"' tier.
How much evil do they manage into their 'browsing and analytics platform' to be $30 worse than their baseline level of spying?
Re:Please note: (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like something that would be easy to block, for those that know and care, and those that neither know, nor care, won't care.
Re:Please note: (Score:4, Interesting)
A nice VPN is a great idea. The very idea that your privacy is worth such a pittance is really insulting.
Tin Foil Hat Time (Score:3)
Imagine if your typical VPN company is really a subsidiary owned by the big players ( Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Google, The Government ).
So they scaremonger the more technically savvy population into getting VPN services to prevent data spying while the VPN services are, in reality, owned ( or have $$$$ agreements with ) by the very ones we're trying to avoid in the first place.
They get your $$ for their basic service.
They get your $
Re:Please note: (Score:5, Interesting)
The weird thing is this type of traditional snooping will be defeated as more content providers are switching over to HTTPS. AT&T aren't technical dummies, so they know that. I'm wondering if their scheme doesn't require a special browser plugin that automates an MITM attack on https....
What's weirdest of all is that until now, federal law has protected the ISPs from liability over the content they transmit: [wikipedia.org]
The rationale behind that statue was that ISPs can't be held accountable for copyright-infringing material going over their wires because filtering it would be too onerous. If AT&T sets up such a monitoring system, it pretty well defeats the claim they don't know what their subscribers are transmitting / receiving.
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No.
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Why would they need a browser plugin? A third only needs the plugin to insert themselves in the middle. As an ISP, AT&T is already in the middle. They could simply redirect all your https queries to their own ser
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That's their retail value. If you're suing Anthem in a class action because of their breach, the value will be astoundingly different.
Do you think they asked (Score:4, Insightful)
"Should we still do this, even if 0.5% of our customers might use a workaround?" Or is the answer so obvious that no one bothered to bring it up at all?
Re:Please note: (Score:4, Interesting)
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It gets better.
Cities with google fiber get 3-4 ISP's to choose from while the majority of the country get 1 ISP to choose from, 2 if they are lucky.
Therefore we need title II to stimulate competition in cities that are currently being stuck with just one ISP.
Randite anti-jocks (Score:3)
and your silly "competition" pablum. What we need is municipal utilities, which we would of course have if AT&T weren't at the vanguard of fighting against their existence.
Re:Please note: (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll take the cheaper one since they'll still be spying on you regardless. I don't care if they target ads to me because I don't pay attention to ads anyway. Cynical as I am I consider all advertising to be lies and ignore anything they have to say as total bullshit because......that's what it invariably is. I love Pepsi's ads, they blow the lame ones Coke has away, but I don't buy Pepsi because to me it tastes like shit. Ads are bullshit plain and simple. I don't get why gullible people believe and listen to lies like that.
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I love Pepsi's ads, they blow the lame ones Coke has away, but I don't buy Pepsi because to me it tastes like shit. Ads are bullshit plain and simple. I don't get why gullible people believe and listen to lies like that.
Ironically, what you don't realize is that the advertisement is working. So you like pepsi better than coke. What about all the other
much cheaper colas? Yes, in some ways pepsi and coke are competitors but their prices are the same and they are both actually
better off pretending to be competitors. Their real competition is the offbrand but they have managed to convince everyone including
you that they are a premium brand when in reality if given 10 different colas you probably would have a hard time narr
Yet, for some reason... (Score:2)
with the same obvious set of interests and the same payoffs for roughly the same people, the two-party system must never be questioned.
Seriously, you wannabe jocks are getting tiresome. He who struts shall be knocked flat on his face and humiliated until he cries. It works for everyone, if you can hold them in place long enough.
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with the same obvious set of interests and the same payoffs for roughly the same people, the two-party system must never be questioned.
Yes, the two party system operates the same way as does a host of other areas.
Basically, people can recognize monopolies but tend to ignore duopolies. There
are probably more duopolies in existance today than monopolies because they
can pretend to be competive if they share and price fix with a partner in crime.
The republicrats are obviously one of the biggest and most entrenched and alot
of people have figured it out but not enough see it or care yet to make much of
a difference so instead they argue over tec
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In this case though, since they seem to be explicitly stating that they will collect information, they'll have justification to do a lot more than what's "normally" collected.
So you will pay 30 dollars more and think they aren't collecting and using the same amount of information? How cute!
Thought process (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder about the thought process behind this.
Our competitor launched an offering that blows everything out of the water that we offer. Let's provide a product to compete! But here's the catch: Let's make it suck! That'll show 'em.
Are consumers just that dumb or is AT&T just that arrogant?
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Insightful)
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yah, but we trust google more than AT&T.
Also, google is likely doing it for their own benefit (google will aggregate and use data for their own business---they're unlikely to resell it), AT&T is doing it for the dubious reason of gathering data to sell to others (not to use it themselves). At that point, you don't know who'll end up with that data...
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Interesting)
At least AT&T is up front about it. Google does everything listed in the summary but they rely on nobody reading the fine print.
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read https://fiber.google.com/legal/privacy.html?
Technical information collected from the use of Google Fiber Internet for network management, security or maintenance may be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, but such information associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber will not be used by other Google properties without your consent. Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (such as URLs of websites visited or content of communications) will not be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, except with your consent or to meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
Either (1) Google is lying in their privacy policy (doubtful--even if you didn't trust them it'd be a big liability) or no, they're not doing all that AT&T. The only fine print is "100 times faster Internet claim is based on the FCC’s benchmark for broadband of 4 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload. Go to Google Fiber Help Center for further details. Service not available in all areas."
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Re: Thought process (Score:3)
Google Fibre, like every other ISP, will at some point have to monitor some subscribers traffic to debug network faults and the like. They're being upfront about it, that's all. If you want an ISP who never runs tcpdump, good luck to you.
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Do you have any evidence of that? I mean evidence that they are monitoring the connection in some way and extracting information from your browsing habits. Obviously they do when you visit google.com, but that's quite different and would indeed be a big scandal.
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you have any evidence of that? I mean evidence that they are monitoring the connection in some way and extracting information from your browsing habits.
Not sure if you are thinking of some shady folks in a room watchnig your personal traffic, but you can get the evidence for yourself in this manner:
Install noscript on your browser. Set it to not allow any scripts.
Now start going to random sites. First thing you'll notice is that some dont work correctly.
But now there is a little yellow bar across the bottom of your screen, and with a click or two you can see what is being blocked. First stop, you'll see Google analytics and some often some other google scripts. Then very often Facebook, who is tracking you whether you have a facebook account or not. Some other ad trackers as well - there are a lot of them.
So let's now temporarily allow all the scripts. Click. Now the page will reload. But just to annoy you, there are more scripts being blocked. Look at 'em if you want. More folks collecting data. Allow these ones temporarily, and you'll often find a third layer of scripts. I've found some times 30 or more little scripties reporting back to some place or another.
If you have a high threshhold for boredom, you can even look up who these folks are. There are a couple scripts that are completely innocuous, that deal with font rendering. But most want to know where you were, where you are, and where you are going.
That's just the scripts, not the hidden cookies - which you want something like "Better Privacy" for.
And that's just the ones we know about.
It's pretty obvious that every keystroke, every website we make or visit is monitored by something, Hell, if you try to use the net anonymously, you become interesting to some folks. I mainly use noscript and adblock as a way to make surfing tolerable. Privacy? Ain't happenin', and it's plain weird that AT&T is offering this discount to do what they are going to do to the "premium" subscribers too.
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At least with the AT&T deal you can opt out, even if the terms are outrageous. Google doesn't offer any means to opt out, outrageous or otherwise. As to cost, I punch "google fiber cost per month" into Google's own site and $70/month for gigabit is the result. And Google's selective cherry picking of lucrative markets isn't any more egalitarian than anything AT&T is up to; let me know the next time Google wires up a violence plagued ghetto somewhere.
Seems to me that at worst AT&T is guilty
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Insightful)
Except there isn't anything to indicate that Google is actually spying on you when you use their internet service.
The whole point of this two tiered pricing system on AT&T's part is to make it seem as though Google is doing the same, but that doesn't appear to be the case. The reality is quite simple: AT&T wants to charge you $100 for the service, and if they can't, then they are hell bent and determined on claiming their pound of flesh in some other way.
It isn't exactly a secret that AT&T (and Verizon) has been running a campaign to try to get consumers to value bandwidth at a higher price than they presently pay, because in their mind that is the future cash cow (since they've discovered that text messages, voice minutes, and cable TV aren't "cool" any more, and thus triple play is dying.) Haven't you ever wondered why them (and Verizon) got rid of their unlimited mobile data plans? Hint: It has nothing to do with a lack of spectrum (they have plenty in their possession.) Meanwhile T-Mobile and Sprint (with much lower spectrum holdings) have not.
Re:Thought process (Score:4, Insightful)
Except there isn't anything to indicate that Google is actually spying on you when you use their internet service.
This would be redundant. Virtually every website on the planet already reports to Google for one reason or another.
Re:Thought process (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect you are exactly right. What AT&T is doing here is adopting googles policies / business practices and raising them by an order of magnitude. They are pushing it to the point where they are almost certain to get yelled at by the FCC, at which point they will point at Google and cry "but they get to do it, why can't we?".
They hope to make this whole "fast internet" thing unprofitable for Google so they will go away and let them rape the american public in peace. What AT&T understand is that Google isn't in the broadband business for (direct) profit. Google makes their money selling ads. They want you on a fast internet connection so you can run more searches and watch more youtube videos. The bandwidth limiting "caps" and other nonsense the incumbents have been up to lately have forced Google's hand. Much like their current Net Neutrality situation, these idiots did it to themselves.
It's sad to see a large company throw these temper tantrums. Pathetic might me a better word.
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Informative)
let me know the next time Google wires up a violence plagued ghetto somewhere.
https://fiber.google.com/citie... [google.com]
Oh trust me... there are plenty...
Also, I believe the city had some say in where they started, and in what order zoning/permitting was/is being approved.
Now if you want to go and say they are cherry picking markets as in those where it will do well (big cities), let me show you every commercially available communications advance (POTS with > 28.8, DSLAMs, ISDN, Cell Service, 4G, Cable, Broadband)
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And Google's selective cherry picking of lucrative markets isn't any more egalitarian than anything AT&T is up to;
Yes, it is. AT&T is wiring up neighborhoods Google wired or is about to wire, exploiting their monopoly elsewhere. Google did what AT&T claimed they were doing, and wired up based on demand density.
let me know the next time Google wires up a violence plagued ghetto somewhere.
Google did marketing and advocacy to try to get poorer neighborhoods to commit to service. And they offer 7 years of slow service for $300, payable at $25/mo for the first year, which counts towards the percentage threshold to trigger buildout. The threshold is adjusted for population density. If you
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I have this new brand of cereal to sell you. And ours guarantees that it is 100 percent free of prison rape too.
You see any other brand of cereal give you that guarantee? no? well. you know, if you're willing to risk the chance of prison rape...
Call me a cynic, but this just looks like AT&T selling me something that i shouldn't expect with my product in the first place... or jacking up the price by offering a discount type things... or just making the spying all legal like...
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Insightful)
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You do realize that page basically says they're going to collect enough information to bill you for services, right? And that
Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (such as URLs of websites visited or content of communications) will not be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, except with your consent or to meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
This is very different than AT&T's system, where they say
we may use information about your individual Web browsing activity to deliver ads and offers tailored to your interests. For example, if you search for a car online, you may receive an email notifying you of a local dealership's sale.
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Insightful)
How does this (from TFA) [arstechnica.com]:
AT&T says it tracks "the webpages you visit, the time you spend on each, the links or ads you see and follow, and the search terms you enter... AT&T Internet Preferences works independently of your browser's privacy settings regarding cookies, do-not-track, and private browsing. If you opt-in to AT&T Internet Preferences, AT&T will still be able to collect and use your Web browsing information independent of those settings."
equal this:
Technical information collected from the use of Google Fiber Internet for network management, security or maintenance may be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, but such information associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber will not be used by other Google properties without your consent. Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (such as URLs of websites visited or content of communications) will not be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, except with your consent or to meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
The last blurb just makes it clear that Gmail's terms of service apply when you use Gmail, this doesn't supersede any other agreement. And if you use Hotmail or Yahoo or your own email server Google won't collect any information on you, but AT&T will.
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Informative)
Consumers are actually that dumb. There are a lot of people out there who will gladly let every iota of their personal information be sucked up in exchange for a cheaper price.
Re:Thought process (Score:5, Insightful)
Our competitor launched an offering that blows everything out of the water that we offer. Let's provide a product to compete! But here's the catch: Let's make it suck! That'll show 'em.
ATT is acting like a monopoly that needs to be broken up by the courts.
Double Jeopardy! (Score:2)
ATT is acting like a monopoly that needs to be broken up by the courts.
What is "Double Jeopardy!"?
I thought AT&T was already broken up three decades ago [wikipedia.org] for monopoly abuse.
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That company no longer exists...
AT&T today is actually the old SouthWestern Bell, turned Cingular, that bought AT&T...
It is a messy web. :)
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Re:Double Jeopardy! (Score:4, Insightful)
ATT is acting like a monopoly that needs to be broken up by the courts.
What is "Double Jeopardy!"?
I thought AT&T was already broken up three decades ago [wikipedia.org] for monopoly abuse.
By your logic, if I get convicted of murder once, I can then go around murderin' again as much as I want once I'm released from prison.
It is possible to be convicted of the same crime again if you repeat it...
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By your logic, if I get convicted of murder once, I can then go around murderin' again as much as I want once I'm released from prison.
Who are Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, and Bruce Greenwood [wikipedia.org]?
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ATT is acting like a monopoly that needs to be broken up by the courts.
What is "Double Jeopardy!"?
I thought AT&T was already broken up three decades ago [wikipedia.org] for monopoly abuse.
They were, this is not the same AT&T. It basically died and Southwestern Bell bought the name. You can find more about it here:
http://www.teletruth.org/Histo... [teletruth.org]
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I thought AT&T was already broken up three decades ago for monopoly abuse.
No... A different entity by the same name was broken up three decades ago, this is The New AT&T.
One of the entities that was split off went and gradually bought up companies that had been broken off and re-assembled a new ginormous monopoly.
And committing new monopoly abuses --- not vertical integration, but anticompetitive behavior, such as this latest stunt against Google.
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Yes consumers are that dumb and Yes AT&T is that arrogant.
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As Douglas Adams said it aptly: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company"
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Are consumers just that dumb or is AT&T just that arrogant?
YES!
Bumped to 100 Mbps (Score:2)
if there is a 'non-privacy' mode .. (Score:3)
then does that mean they actively stop (or try to stop) your use of vpns and encryption?
For targeted advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)
How are they planning on delivering that? Through injecting ads in your traffic, email spam or letterbox spam? They don't have an ad network like Google.
With the trend of more and more https traffic, how do they intend on sniffing that?
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beacons work just as well on https page as http, and they can see your DNS queries.
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And when they get complaints because someones Google/Android TV can't contact 8.8.8.8?
Complaints cost money.
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They don't need to see the DNS queries, they know the IP address in an SSL connection. What they don't know. is what you're searching for when you go to google.com, or what articles you're reading, who you like on Facebook and who you follow on Twitter, or even what your account names are on those services, unless they pay those companies for that information.
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How are they planning on delivering that? Through injecting ads in your traffic, email spam or letterbox spam? They don't have an ad network like Google.
Easy - run the AdBlock filter set against a proxy (e.g. squid filter) and replace the web site's ads with their own.
I mean, that would be less scummy than what they're advertising.
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That sounds like a pretty good deal then. Just give them an email address you don't use.
Unless they start MITM attacking SSL connections to sniff traffic, as more services use it. Unless they're paying google, they can't find out what you're searching for because it defaults to SSL.
Left a Lot of Evil On the Table (Score:4, Insightful)
I feel AT&T really missed the Evil sweet spot with that tepid announcement. Terms like "Mercifully GRANT you WORTHLESS PLEBEIANS a fair and subsidized tariff on Our Internet" were right there for the taking. "Once we conquer the Dusky, Anti-Capitalist Muslim Usurper" - come on, AT&T! It's like you've killed your last white, long-haired cat in a fit of pique and now you really just don't know how to be EVIL. Let alone Evil. Let alone 'evil'.
Companies like Apple and Google consciously build up good will balances - and spend them here and there. Apple's issue is that their customers feel there is a ton of good will in the account - but non-Apple people don't get it at all. With Google, their fiber initiative is a good will bank bonanza (for people who are lucky enough to be in remote, non-ocean-bordering geographically experimental locations). On the whole, I'm not sure where they fall on the Good Will vs. Evil balance.
But AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner are plainly evil, short-sighted Lovecraftian horrors who would consume the world were they not so transparently stupid in their evil. They should seriously fire the entire top 5% of their management structure across the board and have the board outsource their entire strategy and management function to random graduate MBA's from North Korea, Belarus and Eritrea. You'd get a much more focused and higher-quality Evil for pennies on the dollar. PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR, BOARD MEMBERS.
TL;DR: assholes
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You forgot Elbonia.
Uhm. (Score:2)
How... neutral.
It's high time for a new consumer protection law. (Score:4, Insightful)
Advertising has gotten out of control. When I visit a website, the operating system may be collecting information and advertising to me, the website may be collecting information and advertising to me, the website's corporate partners may be collecting information and advertising to me, the browser developer may be collecting information and advertising to me, and my internet service provider or cellular phone provider may be collecting information and advertising to me. I'm sure I've left out several ways that different layers of companies are trying to cram advertising down my throat.
FUCKING ENOUGH WITH THE ADS ALREADY.
If I visit your website and consume your content for free, you may attempt to advertise to me. If I pay a subscription fee for your website, shut the ads off. If I use your app, browser, or operating system for free, you may attempt to advertise to me. If I purchase your app, browser, or operating system, shut the ads off. And for God's sake, if you aren't piping internet service into my home at zero cost to me, you have no right to collect my information and advertise to me.
We need a new law that says if a consumer is paying a company for a service, the company is not allowed to advertise to the consumer on that service. Period.
Half and half (Score:5, Informative)
We need a new law that says if a consumer is paying a company for a service, the company is not allowed to advertise to the consumer on that service. Period.
In some markets, providing a service costs more than advertisers alone or subscribers alone are willing to pay. Thus in markets such as pay television, an arrangement has been reached where advertisers pay a portion and subscribers pay a portion. If you require either advertisement or subscription and never both, the provider will have to raise subscription rates in order to continue to pay its costs. This will cause the majority of subscribers to stop subscribing, leaving too few subscribers. Good luck sustaining a service like cable TV or Hulu Plus once you've made every channel as expensive as, say, HBO.
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Hulu Plus is losing customers like me because of their incessant advertising. I'd be willing to pay more for an ad-free service, but they don't offer it. On the other hand, I pay for two different streaming services, both ad-free. I'm actually fine with letting the market decide whether or not most services are ad-free or ad-supplemented.
However, in the case of ISPs, I don't believe they should be be able to extract information from you for advertising purposes. That's pretty much equivalent to listenin
Delay (Score:2)
How come Netflix can do it for 7.99 a month without ads?
Because publishers charge a higher royalty for recent series. I'm under the impression that apart from Netflix's own original series, there is a delay of months before a new series is made available on Netflix.
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How come Netflix can do it for 7.99 a month without ads?
Because publishers charge a higher royalty for recent series. I'm under the impression that apart from Netflix's own original series, there is a delay of months before a new series is made available on Netflix.
Let's see.... who owns Hulu? Twenty-First Century FOX, Walk Disney Co, and NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast). Gee, wonder how they're able to get series faster?
Who owns Netflix? Publicly traded Netflix does, and it was started by two guys (Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings).
I'm not saying any of them is perfect or anything like that, but comparing Hulu to other services like Netflix or Amazon Instant Video etc is just not possible. There's a significant problem regarding media distribution rights and licensing,
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What utter tosh. How come Netflix can do it for 7.99 a month without ads?
Does Netflix give you everything you want? Then just subscribe to that and be done with it, no more complaining needed.
If not, then the existence of Netflix doesn't really say anything one way or another about whether a similar model works for whatever it is you're interested in.
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Of course people have a choice: different content.
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FUCKING ENOUGH WITH THE ADS ALREADY.
Slightly off-topic but this is exactly how I feel watching the Premium Hulu Plus that I pay a monthly subscription for :-( I'd pay a bit more even for ad free.
Thanks AT&T (Score:2, Insightful)
Can you imagine the outcry if AT&T offered a level of service where the spied on your phone calls and inserted targeted advertisements? No one can ever again argue that Title 2 isn't necessary. This is the one of the very reasons common carrier laws were written!
DEMAND? Yeah, right. (Score:2)
"AT&T does not plan to offer the ultra-fast Internet lines to every home in the market. Rather, he said the company would calculate where demand is strongest and the investment in stringing new cables promised a decent return."
More like, "the company would calculate where COMPETITION is strongest". I'm pretty sure Kansas City (or any of its neighborhoods) is not even in the top 10 markets for high speed Internet DEMAND.
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No, not full stop.
My parents live in a town that (due to some experiments by various utilities/ISPs) has *4* decent Internet access solutions. Much more competition than average, but demand is no higher than anywhere else, and less than many. Prices and performance aren't even that much better (since not surprisingly the way most "competing utilities" price is to unofficially agree not to undercut each other).
And thus we have... (Score:2)
adblock (Score:2)
Reverse incentivizing (Score:2)
Many if not most people I know probably don't care *that* much about their browsing data being collected (the "I'm not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to hide" crowd). I think a good section of the population will just say "cheap? Sign me up!". AT&T probably stands to make much more from advertising than from the $30/month added fee, so they want to drive people to the advertising-based model to the greatest extent possible. The more expensive option is simply a disincentive for people -- the
Fortunately... (Score:2)
...we're assholes.
And by that, I mean we're the types to run a process in the background which randomly "clicks" on ads and otherwise generates browser "noise" during our downtime.
Sign me up for the 70 a month, suckers!
VPNs cost less then 30 USD a month (Score:2)
if you wanted to opt out of being tracked, it would be cheaper to get an anonymizing VPN and run all your trackable traffic through that.
I've seen some VPNs as cheap as 5 USD a month.
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I've seen some VPNs as cheap as 5 USD a month.
They can be so cheap because they sell your data.
You think AWS isn't sniffed? (Score:2)
You're so cute!
Kansas City Made a Huge Mistake (Score:2)
You see what happened by allowing competition? They got two competing gigabit services. Uh, oh - unintended consequences.
Most good governments maintain and regulate the monopoly and reassure us that nobody needs or wants gigabit. Gigabit is too much for people - they could get hurt with that much data. Only people who are doing bad things need that much data.
And now one of them offers a bad deal. This will just create customer confusion - who can be expected to understand that spying on you is a bad th
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What you did there - I see it.
How much does it cost (Score:2)
To have my packets routed around the beam splitters that they have provided the NSA with since at least 2006?
"Subsidized by what, you ask?" (Score:2)
Regards,
a European broadband user.
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Only one comment I can think of: outrageous prices (still, and again) combined with outrageous terms.
Regards,
a European broadband user.
And how much are you paying for your gigabit internet service?
In Kansas City (Score:2)
With a GB connection, VPN on the router = privacy (Score:2)
With a GB connection, what the hell? Add a decent VPN service to the router and let ATT whistle for your browsing habits.
So much bullshitting around whining about who can see what you browse to. Get a clue.
More proof we need heavy regulation... (Score:2)
AT&T is proving that they and all other ISP's are scumbags that need heavy regulation to keep them from acting like complete assholes.
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But they are less evil than Comcast and Time Warner... Soooo all three needs to be disbanded and the executives sent to "survivor" island where they are not the top of the food chain.
This needs to be illegal ... (Score:3)
These idiots need to get deemed as common carriers who aren't entitled to track what we do in order to make money off targeted advertising.
That AT&T should be able to hold your privacy ransom is appalling, and definitely means they have far too much power in this equation.
In any sane country with sane privacy laws, this would be illegal ... but for some reason corporate entitlement seems to be inviolate.
It really is time to start bringing this to them ... if AT&T wants to sell our privacy, maybe the act of working for AT&T means you don't get any and the world starts releasing your personal information?
It's time corporations stopped calling all the shots. Or the rest of the world might have to start taking our own shots.
Of course, I bet even if you paid the monthly extortion fee to not see the ads, they'll still track you for the analytics. This is insane.
Assholes.
Tracking search terms? How? (Score:2)
Aren't most major search sites using SSL now? How would AT&T be able to track search terms if the traffic is encrypted?
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the "more privacy" option is still as private as google.
the less privacy option is dubious at best and copyright infringing at worst (they're going to ad inserting and search term saving.. in other words.. wtf, are they going to replaces googles ads when you do a google search?).
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the "more privacy" option is still as private as google.
LOOOOL. The only reason google enters into any business is if there is consumer information it can collect and do whatever it wants with it, not just advertising.
Yes, that's true. What's also true is that AT&T is asking to do even more than that unless you pay them $30 more per month.
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You accidentally your links, but if one of them was SureWest, go with them.
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Right now I pay TWC $65 a month for 50Mbps. I have the option to pay AT&T about the same (and enter a contract). I would gladly take Google fiber here. Luckily I live in Charlotte, where Google fiber is in the works, sadly I live far enough from the center tha
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AT&T is not a proactive company. The status quo is just fine considering their monopoly / duopoly position. It's only when some crazy young upstart shows up and threatens their traditional b