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Aussie Telco Caught Handing Over User Mobile Numbers To Websites Without Consent

Posted by Soulskill on from the upside-down-morals dept.

AlbanX writes: Australian telco Optus has been nabbed passing its customers' mobile phone numbers to third-party websites without the customers' knowledge or consent. The practice, known as HTTP header enrichment, aims to streamline the process of direct billing for customers, but they're not happy. The discovery was made by a user on the telco forum Whirlpool, and Optus confirmed it. They said, "Optus adds our customers' mobile number to the information in select circumstances where we have a commercial relationship with owners of particular websites."

3 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. "Caught" would imply... by geekmux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...a crime was committed, or at minimum that we're going to actually do something to them.

    Of course, we all know nothing will come of this, or at best a slap-on-the-wrist fine, which they've probably already calculated as a standard business expense.

    Might as well just stop putting stories out like this until consumers are actually willing to act upon it. I'm willing to be there isn't enough consumer give-a-shit left in the world to tackle even this single issue, let alone tackle the mass arrogance that corporations pull off today at the expense of the customer.

    What does it matter if you label someone as "caught" if the reaction is nothing.

    1. Re:"Caught" would imply... by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Caught" does not imply anything of the sort. If you were caught cheating on your wife, no crime is implied. If you were caught picking your nose, nothing would be done to you (unless you work in food preparation, perhaps).

      In this case, "caught" simply means that the telco was found to be doing something that they hadn't told their customers about (and would obviously prefer they didn't know about). And no, we shouldn't stop posting stories like this. Perhaps Optus will get away with it this time, but each time something similar comes to light it will build in the collective-minds of the public. Eventually something will be done to protect privacy; either at the legal level or the personal level like everyone starting to use VPNs. We will all say the VPNs are to protect us from corporate privacy issues, but really it will be to get around the Great Firewall of Australia or data retention laws.

  2. It's not my fault!!! Money made me do it!!! by BringMyShuttle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > "Optus adds our customers' mobile number to the information in select circumstances where we have a commercial relationship with owners of particular websites."

    Someone needs to tell the weasel at Optus pushing this excuse that they have a COMMERCIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS TOO.