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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.
The United States Government is consitutionally unable to protect the privacy of individuals because of the countervailing property rights of other individuals --meaning corporations and the information they gather-- who have great influence over legislation (because of their sacred individual right to petition the government with their opinion$ and grievance$) and almost total control over public discourse.
That's not quite the same as not only having your address/number sold to spammers, but also having a list of who you call and for how long (and who calls you) being sold.
Look, she orders pizza 3 times a week, never makes calls on Friday...
He calls 976 numbers...
They use the Internet a lot...
Look, he calls Land's End...
In other words a somewhat bigger deal, even to people who normally throw away their privacy... (of corse I would have thought that about the supermarket savings cards, but...)
According to spamcop, about 80% of the websites mentioned in my spam are hosted by Qwest.
I don't think this is a coincidence.
Rather than just rant about it on slashdot where a small percentage of people will see it, I'd recommend people send the link to their grandparents on AOL, non-tech friends, et al.
Companies don't make such decisions without forcasting the outcome. Throw a wrench in Qwest's gears and spread the word to the masses. Maybe the beancounter that figured this would be a relatively painless sell-out will be on the unemployment line in 2 months...
Trolling is a art,
Unfortunately, this is becoming more of the norm than the exception anymore.
There has been a lot of deregulation that came down about two years ago... can anyone remember what bill this was that allowed subsidiary sharing?
Some other things you will soon notice... same newscast on different competing channels. Television stations can own more than one in any particular area.
Cable-television station-power and lights-commecial gas all in one companies. Many of you have seen this already if you live in Southern Indiana, where Vectren, the power company, controls services package for telephone, cable TV, broadband, power, and natural gas for your homes.
I have a friend that pays one bill a month. One huge, overpriced, amazingly illegal-until recently-deregulated bill.
By the way, the company was accused for decades of price gouging.
If you're in Minnesota, you can dump Qwest for USLink. Anywhere Qwest offers service, so does USLink. I've been with them for about 4 months, and they are both cheaper, and they haven't "accidentally" messed up my bill like Qwest did every single month. And you get to keep your same phone number.
Seriously, if you have problems with Qwest, report them to your state Public Utilities Commission. I reported them about 5 different times. One of Qwest's customer service people actually suggested I cancel my service because they didn't want me as a customer anymore. After I left, they called me almost every day to get me back. I hate Qwest.
Also, for anti-qwest propaganda, check out http://www.tsewq.com.
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An article about privacy on a website that REQUIRES its users to register. C'mon, this is satire begging to happen.
-- Dan
What we need is some kind of clearing house of opt-out info, a la SpamCop, that would allow us to look up all the companies that we do business with and see what their real policies are. A nice feature would be the ability to generate legally binding letters of notification that we could send to those companies, preemptively opting out of all possible dissemination of our data.
Is this already available, or is someone working on it? If not, I'll get busy. Comments and suggestions welcome!
I called the number listed in the article to opt-out, and found it to be disconnected. Was the number transcribed wrong or is this further complication by Qwest? ;)
What the heck are you talking about? None of these people signed any contract that included the information on this mailer. That's why the tiny, anonymous mailer was sent out-- to "clarify" your rights under the law-- which most people, including even some RBOCs, read as preventing the sale of personal information like call logs. It then names some arbitrary 30 day period (starting when?) after which your information can and will be given out.
On top of that, as the response to the writeup demonstrates, even an attempt to "opt out" of the unilateral "agreement" that Qwest has made you party to is doomed to failure. Both the phone response and web response system seem to be broken.
So again, I see no evidence that these people "accepted" anything-- given the difficulty Qwest will have in proving that their response system is functional, or that this move is even strictly legal (a contract cannot override the law.) And yes, people should ditch Qwest. Problem is that since Qwest bought US West, they're a regional monopoly-- I don't know if most local customers have anywhere else to go.
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.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I hate to tell you this, but running your own DNS is not going to keep the ISP from knowing where you surf and when. Your only real option is an anonymizing proxy outside your ISP. But those guys will also know where you surf and when, at least until your IP changes.
There is no such thing as absolute privacy on the internet, and you are foolish if you think there is a way to achieve it, even with encryption or VPN's, someone, somewhere will always be able to know your habits, and if interested and in the right part of the pipe, even more.
What we really need is decent privacy legislation so that we don't have to opt out of these things. The default shold be privacy; if you see a benefit in some business sharing or retaining your information for marketing purposes, you can always opt in.
While the third judge's ringing dissent demonstrated that there were some serious problems with the resoning and legal basis of the ruling, the Bush FCC, which is said to have a bias toward corporate interests, has thus far failed to appeal it.
Qwest and the other Baby Bells thus feel empowered to violate ALL of the plain language of 47 U.S.C. 222 (part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), which states:
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.Yet, the Bells press on to sell users' private information. Apparently, they believe that the agency charged with enforcing the law has been rendered so toothless that they may break the law with impunity. But the fact is that if they implemented the policy stated in their little "notice," they would be breaking the law.
Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law? At the very least, states should make the company's proposed conduct illegal and fight attempts to destroy consumer privacy.
--Brett Glass
So the talk tonight is about your phone call history being for sale. Perhaps it's already happening, or perhaps the water is merely being tested... the groundwork laid. But let's speak generally, and think about the future. If privacy is outlawed, look at the bright side. There should be a lot of interesting things for sale!
If the telephone company will sell the dirt on who calls who and when, then they should sell it to anyone... even you, right?
Of course, they may refuse to sell YOU such information (for whatever reason). Then you have an interesting double-standard to explore... Why do they deal with Mr. Make Money Fast and not with you? It might be a question for the courts. And you can probably fool them into dealing with you anyway - start a "fake" shell company, pretend to be someone they will deal with, etc...
I would be surprised if it's so hard, though. If they've really gone to the trouble of gearing up to sell this data, shouldn't they be selling it to every customer they can find? No, the worst possibility is likely that they will make it a little bit expensive. But this won't be a bother to a public interest group which can pool resources.
Now picture yourself holding the binder of DVDs (or the u/p to the database) - phone records for whole regions for whole years. You now have access to all kinds of nifty information about all kinds of interesting people. Celebrities, government bureaucrats, policemen, your ex-girlfriend/boyfriend, your boss, your employees... The more detailed and revealing the data, the better!
An apocryphal mountain of dirt will be at your fingertips. Start mining it, and start abusing it! Anyone you embarass or blackmail is an instant convert to the cause! The more marks you horrify, and the more wealthy and powerful they are, the better. Get creative! Take out a full page in a local paper and fill it with names of everyone in the neighborhood who calls 900 numbers for pr0n. "Stalk" your mayor/congressman/sherrif/principal. Try to catch people cheating on their spouses. Try to catch businessmen calling politicians - and vice versa! Have fun watching how much police talk to organized criminals - and when!
Of course, the really interesting targets (members of congress, secret service, military, movie stars) might somehow manage to get themselves hidden - although many won't, since the opt-out trap works on powerful and meek alike. Regardless, you either get everyone, or you get another exploitable double-standard, from which comes either the ability to make trouble for the marketers, or the ability to get yourself off the lists too.
Hey, that's one of my favorites - the myth that you can "opt-out" at all - meanwhile, everyone who's already bought your data has resold it to 100 people, and each of those resold it to another 100... You could print a regular column of detailed information on those people who have "opted out" by buying the data regularly and comparing versions. I just kill myself sometimes.
The worse damage they do, the more egregious the privacy violations become, the better the opportunities for successful protest. If some people (dare we say, even the majority of people) lack the imagination to understand what the erosion of privacy rights is doing to them, then they need some preventative medicine, and (according to the gov't!) you have every right to give it to them. It will be your social duty, not to mention smashingly funny, to unleash some tough marketing love, if you will, on the unenlightened. You know what they say: we only realize what we love by how much it hurts when it's lost.
We're on the road to Tycho.
The language here is quite clear and unambiguous. Regardless of whether or not the Bells can tie the FCC's rulemaking process up in the courts, the activities proposed by Qwest in its brochure are patently illegal.
... after all, we lock up individuals who do this sort of thing, usually applying the label "voyeur" or "peeping tom" so why should we be any less stringent with organized, by some definitions conspiratorial, violations of our privacy?)
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Perhaps it is time for private and/or class action lawsuits, or suits by state Attorneys General, to enforce the provisions of the law?
Perhaps it is time we started imprisoning CEOs and board members of companies that willfully break the law like this, counting on endless court battles and legal thuggary to allow them to gain the profits of their illegal actions before they can be compelled to adhere to the laws the rest of us are expected to abide by. As long as it is simply a numbers (financial) game one of the most important, and potent, deterrents against breaking the law will be rendered impotent, namely the consiquence of doing time for violating other people's rights. (Including the right to privacy
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