Qwest Plan Stirs Protest Over Privacy

gilroy writes: "The New York Times has an article (free registration required) about customer reaction to a recent mailing by Qwest. Although the mailer only describes their privacy policy as it currently exists, apparently it's caught a few people by surprise." This hit David Farber's IP list a few days ago: see the original message or the follow-up. As Brett Glass accurately notes, most people believe that information about who they call is protected by law.

Comments

Re:Let's Face It

[quintessent]

Why does congress have to bow to corporations so readily? Think: Campaign finance. Corporations can donate unlimited amounts of money to political parties as long as it is "soft money." In recent years, the parties have learned to skirt the rules and really use this money to win elections. The more this corporate money becomes essential to winning elections, the more politicians will be bowing to every whim of the big corporations.

As long as there is no campaign finance reform, the RIAA, MPAA, copyright holders, and others will continue to buy your rights away.

Re:So hands up who did not read the agreement...

[quintessent]

There is one flaw with your finger-pointing:

One company creates a legal document that it sends out to millions of people and requires them to accept to use its service.

The same company therefore has the resources to make the legal document really, really, long and complicated and incomprensible by the average reader. The amount of obfuscation is purely up to the company.

Millions of people do not have the same time to devote to deciphering the said document. Even though each of us may care a lot about these issues, there is a limit to our individual intelligence and/or patience.