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FCC Allows Bells to Sell Your Telephone Usage Data
Devistater writes "Spotted on hardocp. The FCC said in a ruling yesterday that telephone companies can sell your name, who you call, and for how long you talk to anyone who is an "affiliate." No longer is this required to be an opt in marketing approach, now its OPT OUT. Sounds like spam is coming to the telephone world, and what an egregious breach of privacy. Article on PCWorld has some of the details." There's also a short Reuters story and a good one on ecommercetimes.com.
Hello Mr Smith, I'm calling today to tell you that we noticed that you are making quite a few calls to 555-555-5555. We further wish to tell you that we believe that these calls are related to you having an extramarital affair.
We are bringing you this service to offer you a chance to keep us quiet with a one time payment of $500. Not only will you get piece of mind ( for now ) that we won't tell your wife but you'll also get a handy cookbook from Martha Stewart.
If you don't wish to have your marriage ruined please stay on the line while I transfer this call to an independent verifier
Have a good day!
What a moron. I guess I should have a reduced expectation of privacy in the bathroom if it is in regards to the brand of toilet paper I use, or my preferred bar soap.
I can't believe he thinks anyone will buy this aas anything but a cop out to corporate "donations". Too bad no one gives a damn.
argh. Time to call the phone company and sit on hold for a million years...
----rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Well, yes and no.
1) You have to decide if their violating your privacy constitutes harming you. I think it does. So, just like drug makers can't sell you poison (doing you harm,) the phone company can't sell your phone records to people who want information on you. The harm is, I will grant, less severe, but it is still harm.
2) The guv'mint provides a regulatory backdrop that makes the telephone system possible. The system was built by Bell, originally, but with government help. If there were really more than one system - if, say, Sprint and AT&T customers could not call each other - than you might expect less guarantees about their behavior. As it is, they are selling access to the single, public, telephone network. They should not be in a position to dictate the terms under which that network can be accessed.
3) In the past, your phone records have been more-or-less private. This is a PRECEDENT. Precedent is more powerful than logic; if you engage in an illogical business practice long enough that people expect you to do it, you can't stop. Unfortunately, this principle has no force of written law, but as a practical guideline it pops up all the time.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I would hate to think of the that anytime you purchase a good or service, that your personal information will be sold to spam houses.
The whole concept of advertising right now is getting absolutely ridiculous. It seems now that the onus is on us as consumers to pay attention to all advertisments, rather than the advertising to attract us by being clever, funny what have you. Simply by being a possible consumer, the advertiser somehow got the right to harrass me.
What's the point of having a telephone, if I am going to be getting the ringing equivalent of pop-up windows? It's bad enough with telemarketers.
Screw it, if any one needs to reach me, send me a damn letter (email's worse!), if its important enough for me to know it can wait a week sheesh...
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the kind of information that you needed a warrant to get? How can something that was considered private enough to require a judge's approval now be sold to the highest bidder. I seriously hope that this is not as bad as it sounds. I'm holding off writing my representatives until I see if this is real and if it really says what we're hearing. If the news is as bad as this sounds, WRITE YOUR REPRESNTATIVE!!! Don't let this action go unchallenged.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
It is NOT a free speech issue to tell other divisions, "partners", or anyone at all for that matter who I call. I don't think this you can find a better example of violating a person's right to privacy (4th Amendment) than to sell or otherwise disseminate details about a person's personal phone calls (date, time, number, duration).
This is a clear example of corporate takeover of government. Citizens - you're doing it to yourselves. Take political action; you don't have to quit your job. Just take a few minutes one day a week to contact your representatives to gripe and organize locally, whether you're an independent, a Green, a Republicrat or a Demopublican.
God I hate anyone who says if you dont like something just don't buy it. That works for pizzas (man you'll never see me eat at a Papa Johns) but not GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED MONOPOLIES like telephone services.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
The text of the FCC ruling claims that this opt-out thing was done to balance the "first amendment rights" of the carriers. What about my rights not to be marketed at constantly?
Oh, wait, sorry, my mistake. That right's not explicitly mentioned in the constitution, I must not deserve it.
I'm not a person, I'm but a lowly consumer. I exist to fuel other people's economy. I should just shut up and consume.
We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass no matter how self-seeking.
-- F. G. Withington
Powell Michael K CM-CH (202) 418-1000
I've found a method that's a bit more effective. Tell them, "please remove me from your list" before they can stammer out their opening stanza. They're legally obligated to cut you from the list, and they can't make more money off your number by selling it. (at least I hope that's the way it works).
Either way, I've noticed significantly less telemarketing calls since I started doing this.
- passion
Tissue paper companies.
Chairman Michael K. Powell: mpowell@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kathleen Q. Abernathy: kabernat@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: mcopps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Kevin J. Martin: kjmweb@fcc.gov
Customer Service Standards:
Send your comments to:OMDCSSTF@fcc.gov
General e-mail should be sent to: FCCINFO@FCC.GOV
Remember: a complaint should be a well thoughtout, polite, disagreement NOT a psychotic rant.
EPIC's page ( http://www.epic.org/privacy/cpni/) has some info. For Verizon, call (866) 483-9600 and wade through a tedious phone tree (about four minutes, but have your bill handy).
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is a reply to this comment as a bunch of the other ones.
I imagine many of the slashdotters (and many techie non-slashdotters) out there work at these Bells and all these other companies engaging in these violations of civil liberties. Wouldn't the first place to initiate change be within the corporate walls? For all of you who work at companies selling information and using technology to facilitate the exchange, why not stand up and refuse to comply with corporate wishes until the issues of civil liberties are brought up and resolved? Of course, that may mean your job, but there are lots of jobs out there and lots of ways to make money without infringing on others privacy.
These "selling of information" activities cannot happen if there aren't people willing to build the technology to let the sales, marketing and boardrooms do whatever they want to make money. With all the news lately about corporate crooks, I'd think eventually the people that work at these companies would realize they do have power to change things. It's a matter of courage.
There's no way we can expect most lawmakers and CEOs to change what's happening (even though they should change it!). They are already protected from civil liberty violations. They have goons working to protect what they do and how they do it. Writing them/counting on them may help but in the end most of them have no idea what's involved with all the new technology and new culture surrounding that technology -- and certainly they won't be able to adjust the laws based on a few angry customers.
I guess the crux of my point is that there are a lot of techies out there enabling these activities. The RIAA must have techies working for them, so do the Bells, and so did Enron, on and on. Why did these techies build this stuff that let this happen? If you are one of the techies at these companies, speak up and tell us your reasoning why you build and maintain solutions that let people so easily violate our civil rights?
Taken from Chairman Powell's public statement:
"But we conclude, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that under the court's constitutional analysis, companies may satisfy the somewhat less stringent requirement of giving consumers the chance to "opt-out" of intracompany communications-related use of CPNI.(1)
(1) The court instructed the Commission to consider an opt-out strategy, which the court concluded was "an obvious and substantially less restrictive alternative" to opt-in. U.S. West v. FCC, 182 F.3d 1224, 1238 (10th Cir. 1999), cert. denied 530 U.S. 1213 (2000)"
Contact the Court of Appeals and complain. Also, contact your local representative.
-Lucas
You mean like:
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My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.