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AT&T to Help MPAA Filter the Internet?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the real-man-in-the-middle-attack dept.

Save the Internet writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the MPAA is trying to convince major ISPs to do content filtering. Now, merely wanting it is one thing, but the more important point is that 'AT&T has agreed to start filtering content at some mysterious point in the future.' We're left to wonder about the legal implications of that, but given that AT&T already has the ability to wiretap everything for the NSA, it was only a matter of time before they found a way to profit from it, too."

2 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. the analogy holds true by User+956 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    the more important point is that 'AT&T has agreed to start filtering content at some mysterious point in the future.'

    Just like with bottled water, unless you get the filtered kind, you might end up with some tubgirl residue floating around in there.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  2. Re:Legal implications: none by Tackhead · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    > So if a member of the government asks you to do something that you know is illegal you would do it?

    If the price was right (in terms of increasing the likelihood of getting more government contracts in the future), and if you were so big that there's nothing that could be done to you even if the government stabs you in the back, absolutely.

    AT&T meets both of these requirements. Lots of money to be made working for the government, and the threat of an Enron- or Worldcom-sized shock to the economy if any future administration should dare to doublecross it by permitting it to be sued for 300,000,000 privacy violations carrying a $10,000 fine for each violation.

    That's the dangerous precedent that's been set here. Working with the intelligence community was the thin edge of the wedge. In the case of the intel community, there's no controlling legal authority... not because our spies are such s00per-s33krit-d00dz of l33t that we dare not expose their actions to the light of day, but because everyone (the judges included) took a hard look at the situation and decided to legalize any behavior that might otherwise result in a $3T lawsuit and the effective shutdown of the nation's re-assembled telecom monopoly.

    Given that precedent, it's no big jump for a MAFIAA goon to ponder what it'll cost to get AT&T do do the same for its clients. The reason there's no controlling legal authority because no legal authority dare impose the sort of control that'd be necessary to dissuade an entity like AT&T.