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AT&T To Match Google Fiber In Kansas City, Charge More If You Want Privacy
An anonymous reader writes: When Google Fiber started bringing gigabit internet to cities around the U.S., we wondered how the incumbent ISPs would respond. Now we know: AT&T has announced they will match Google Fiber's gigabit offerings in Kansas City. Of course, there are some caveats. First, AT&T's rollout may stop as it fights the Obama administration over net neutrality. Not that it would be a nationwide rollout anyway: "AT&T does not plan to offer the ultra-fast Internet lines to every home in the market. Rather, he said the company would calculate where demand is strongest and the investment in stringing new cables promised a decent return."
There are also some interesting pricing concerns. The company plans to charge $70/month for gigabit service, but that's a subsidized price. Subsidized by what, you ask? Your privacy. AT&T says if you want to opt out of letting them track your browsing history, you'll have to pay $29 more per month. They say your information is used to serve targeted advertising, and includes any links you follow and search terms you enter.
There are also some interesting pricing concerns. The company plans to charge $70/month for gigabit service, but that's a subsidized price. Subsidized by what, you ask? Your privacy. AT&T says if you want to opt out of letting them track your browsing history, you'll have to pay $29 more per month. They say your information is used to serve targeted advertising, and includes any links you follow and search terms you enter.
"AT&T may collect and use web browsing information for other purposes, as described in our Privacy Policy, even if you do not participate in the Internet Preferences program."
So, there's the $100/month 'Yup, definitely spying on you' tier where "your Internet traffic is routed to AT&T's Internet Preferences web browsing and analytics platform"(good luck finding out exactly what that entails; but it's probably bad); or the $70/month 'Ominous and vague "other purposes"' tier.
How much evil do they manage into their 'browsing and analytics platform' to be $30 worse than their baseline level of spying?
I wonder about the thought process behind this.
Our competitor launched an offering that blows everything out of the water that we offer. Let's provide a product to compete! But here's the catch: Let's make it suck! That'll show 'em.
Are consumers just that dumb or is AT&T just that arrogant?
Well my ISP here in Overland Park, KS bumped me from 30/5 to 100/5 for free; huh, they could have done that years ago. Looking forward to Google Fiber this year.
then does that mean they actively stop (or try to stop) your use of vpns and encryption?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
How are they planning on delivering that? Through injecting ads in your traffic, email spam or letterbox spam? They don't have an ad network like Google.
With the trend of more and more https traffic, how do they intend on sniffing that?
I feel AT&T really missed the Evil sweet spot with that tepid announcement. Terms like "Mercifully GRANT you WORTHLESS PLEBEIANS a fair and subsidized tariff on Our Internet" were right there for the taking. "Once we conquer the Dusky, Anti-Capitalist Muslim Usurper" - come on, AT&T! It's like you've killed your last white, long-haired cat in a fit of pique and now you really just don't know how to be EVIL. Let alone Evil. Let alone 'evil'.
Companies like Apple and Google consciously build up good will balances - and spend them here and there. Apple's issue is that their customers feel there is a ton of good will in the account - but non-Apple people don't get it at all. With Google, their fiber initiative is a good will bank bonanza (for people who are lucky enough to be in remote, non-ocean-bordering geographically experimental locations). On the whole, I'm not sure where they fall on the Good Will vs. Evil balance.
But AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner are plainly evil, short-sighted Lovecraftian horrors who would consume the world were they not so transparently stupid in their evil. They should seriously fire the entire top 5% of their management structure across the board and have the board outsource their entire strategy and management function to random graduate MBA's from North Korea, Belarus and Eritrea. You'd get a much more focused and higher-quality Evil for pennies on the dollar. PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR, BOARD MEMBERS.
TL;DR: assholes
the "more privacy" option is still as private as google.
the less privacy option is dubious at best and copyright infringing at worst (they're going to ad inserting and search term saving.. in other words.. wtf, are they going to replaces googles ads when you do a google search?).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Advertising has gotten out of control. When I visit a website, the operating system may be collecting information and advertising to me, the website may be collecting information and advertising to me, the website's corporate partners may be collecting information and advertising to me, the browser developer may be collecting information and advertising to me, and my internet service provider or cellular phone provider may be collecting information and advertising to me. I'm sure I've left out several ways that different layers of companies are trying to cram advertising down my throat.
FUCKING ENOUGH WITH THE ADS ALREADY.
If I visit your website and consume your content for free, you may attempt to advertise to me. If I pay a subscription fee for your website, shut the ads off. If I use your app, browser, or operating system for free, you may attempt to advertise to me. If I purchase your app, browser, or operating system, shut the ads off. And for God's sake, if you aren't piping internet service into my home at zero cost to me, you have no right to collect my information and advertise to me.
We need a new law that says if a consumer is paying a company for a service, the company is not allowed to advertise to the consumer on that service. Period.
We need a new law that says if a consumer is paying a company for a service, the company is not allowed to advertise to the consumer on that service. Period.
In some markets, providing a service costs more than advertisers alone or subscribers alone are willing to pay. Thus in markets such as pay television, an arrangement has been reached where advertisers pay a portion and subscribers pay a portion. If you require either advertisement or subscription and never both, the provider will have to raise subscription rates in order to continue to pay its costs. This will cause the majority of subscribers to stop subscribing, leaving too few subscribers. Good luck sustaining a service like cable TV or Hulu Plus once you've made every channel as expensive as, say, HBO.
Can you imagine the outcry if AT&T offered a level of service where the spied on your phone calls and inserted targeted advertisements? No one can ever again argue that Title 2 isn't necessary. This is the one of the very reasons common carrier laws were written!
"Should we still do this, even if 0.5% of our customers might use a workaround?" Or is the answer so obvious that no one bothered to bring it up at all?
That company no longer exists...
AT&T today is actually the old SouthWestern Bell, turned Cingular, that bought AT&T...
It is a messy web. :)
ATT is acting like a monopoly that needs to be broken up by the courts.
What is "Double Jeopardy!"?
I thought AT&T was already broken up three decades ago for monopoly abuse.
By your logic, if I get convicted of murder once, I can then go around murderin' again as much as I want once I'm released from prison.
It is possible to be convicted of the same crime again if you repeat it...
These idiots need to get deemed as common carriers who aren't entitled to track what we do in order to make money off targeted advertising.
That AT&T should be able to hold your privacy ransom is appalling, and definitely means they have far too much power in this equation.
In any sane country with sane privacy laws, this would be illegal ... but for some reason corporate entitlement seems to be inviolate.
It really is time to start bringing this to them ... if AT&T wants to sell our privacy, maybe the act of working for AT&T means you don't get any and the world starts releasing your personal information?
It's time corporations stopped calling all the shots. Or the rest of the world might have to start taking our own shots.
Of course, I bet even if you paid the monthly extortion fee to not see the ads, they'll still track you for the analytics. This is insane.
Assholes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Don't confuse the ISPs you know of with all ISPs - there are plenty which offer great service for a reasonable price, and who don't snoop. Finding one in the US might be a bit trickier than in other places, but they still exist.
and your silly "competition" pablum. What we need is municipal utilities, which we would of course have if AT&T weren't at the vanguard of fighting against their existence.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
I thought of something funny yesterday, that later began to bug me a bit.
:|
Imagine if your typical VPN company is really a subsidiary owned by the big players ( Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Google, The Government ).
So they scaremonger the more technically savvy population into getting VPN services to prevent data spying while the VPN services are, in reality, owned ( or have $$$$ agreements with ) by the very ones we're trying to avoid in the first place.
They get your $$ for their basic service.
They get your $$ again when you sign up for the VPN service.
They STILL get your data anyway.
I know that AT&T's mobile service is likely proxying my HTTP traffic already, agreements or not. ( My IP changes depending on if I'm using HTTP or HTTPS. )
So does Comcast. ( NMAP port 80 shows open even if I disconnect my equipment from the internet.* Sniffer confirms a 3-way handshake still taking place with something that isn't me answering to my assigned IP address with no local equipment connected or even plugged in. )
*Is what started my looking at this a bit closer since my ACL's block everything on the Wan side of things and was driving me nuts thinking I had borked my config somehow.
I thought AT&T was already broken up three decades ago for monopoly abuse.
No... A different entity by the same name was broken up three decades ago, this is The New AT&T.
One of the entities that was split off went and gradually bought up companies that had been broken off and re-assembled a new ginormous monopoly.
And committing new monopoly abuses --- not vertical integration, but anticompetitive behavior, such as this latest stunt against Google.