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AT&T Rewrites Privacy Policy
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.'"
Ditching ATT is not so easy, they have a very large infrastructure and massive backbone. There is really no way to avoid using their services, either directly or indirectly. I hate to say this, but the only way to stop this is through gov intervention (I wont say regulation because I have regulation), but there is little way for the avg consumer to impact ATT's pocket book, now if companies (end user ISPs and such) toss ATT, that would definately hurt them.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
No, a company will most likely not punish themselves for violating their privacy policy. However, my understanding is that they do constitute legally binding agreements with regards to what they do with your information. If the company is found to have violated the agreement that was presented to you, then you do have legal grounds to pursue them for damages. Of course, IANAL, so the preceding may be completely wrong.
This guy's the limit!
Reminding you once again that any privacy policy that includes the clause that it can be changed at any time with minimal notification and no consent is no privacy policy at all.
(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...?)
As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.'"
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.
Do you know many legal agreement between two private party, and which can be changed at any time by one party, even absolving this party from any previous legal agreemeent with the other party, without involving this second party ? Me neither.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
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.
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!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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...
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
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?
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
First remembet that it is not AT&T but SBC wearing a AT&T suit they bought.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Well, it's interesting, but it kind of misses the point. I don't have anything to hide from the NSA; that's not why I want them to stop spying on Americans. I want them to stop spying on Americans because stopping is the right, legal thing to do. Attempting to circumvent their procedures might give be fun in a "stickin' it to the man" sort of way, but it doesn't really take us where we want to go.
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.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
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.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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?
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.
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.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
So far, the only thing that the current administration has done with the information the NSA has gleemed from their taps is track down journalists in order to find the government sources of their leaks.
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.
Hell, FISA allows retroactive applications for warrants! All concerns about the speed of the court system at granting warrants sorta go out the window when you can do first, ask later.
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?
I hate to say this, but the only way to stop this is through gov intervention (I wont say regulation because I hate regulation)
:)
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.