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Comcast Wants To Charge Broadband Users More For Privacy (dslreports.com)
Comcast believes it should be able to charge its broadband users who want to protect their privacy. FCC, on other hand, has indicated that such practices should not be there. In a new filing with the FCC, Comcast says that charging consumers more money to opt out of "snoopvertising" should be considered a perfectly acceptable business model (PDF). DSLReports: "A bargained-for exchange of information for service is a perfectly acceptable and widely used model throughout the U.S. economy, including the Internet ecosystem, and is consistent with decades of legal precedent and policy goals related to consumer protection and privacy," Comcast said in the filing. The company proceeds to claim that banning such options "would harm consumers by, among other things, depriving them of lower-priced offerings." In short, Comcast is arguing that protecting your own privacy should be a paid luxury option, and stopping them from doing so would raise broadband rates. But as we've noted for years it's the lack of competition that keeps broadband prices high. It's also the lack of competition that prevents users upset with broadband privacy practices from switching to another ISP. That's why the FCC thinks some basic privacy rules of the road might be a good idea.
AT&T has being doing this since they announced GigaPower, their 1GB/1GB service.
$100 / month if you want your privacy, or $70 if you let them snoop
...just saying that I'm damned glad I'm no longer a Comcast user. Satellite Internet may cost a bit (and don't ask about bandwidth caps), but at least I get to keep my privacy.
I would say that flopping over to DSL or a different competitor (if possible) would be a possibility, but I doubt it would be too long before all the other massive telecoms decide that "...hey, let's monetize and intrude the crap out of our customers the same way!"
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Comcast complains that the FCC won't let them put remote controlled explosives into their modems in order to bring lower prices to customers.
"A bargained-for exchange of customer's safety and well-being for higher prices is a perfectly acceptable and widely used model throughout the U.S. economy, including the Internet ecosystem, and is consistent with decades of legal precedent and policy goals related to consumer protection and privacy. [Not letting us put explosives in modems] would harm consumers by, among other things, depriving them of lower-priced offerings," Comcast's representative writes.
The last couple of weeks have seen a massive influx of Putin trolls, Hillbots, North Koreans declaring war, all sorts of conservatrolls and libtards, and an intense round of baiting by the communist Chinese, and yet...
Comcast manages to make me twice as pissed off as all the rest of them combined.
JFC, how low can they go? They really need some competition. 15 years ago when I had DSL the phone company had to allow third party ISPs to offer service on their infrastructure. Time to apply this to cable (and back on the phone company as well) and regulate the infrastructure as a utility.
Frankly, we should just nationalize Verizon and Comcast and AT&T and make them not-for-profit.
We've already given them billions of dollars to deploy high speed Internet access to Americans, they just pocketed the money and still give horrible, extortionist, racketeering service to their customers. Well, fuck 'em, I say.
If they're legally allowed to do this, then I AM DONE with Comcast once and for all. I already dumped cable TV years ago, and only use Comcast still for internet because I'm too lazy to change it -- but if they're legally allowed to hold my privacy for ransom like this, then they'll get kicked to the curb so fast it'll make their heads spin. I don't even care if I have NO internet at home, I won't put up with protection-racket bullshit like that, no fucking way.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Really, moving the world to encrypted-by-default is the only solution for this sort of silliness. Then, they can do deep packet inspection all they want to, and all they'll get is a hostname, at best.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
No need to go full-socialist... just regulate them like any other utility, with the same controls on pricing and service levels, and that should be sufficient.
Threaten any recalcitrant ISPs with loss of DMCA Safe Harbor, and, wait... how the fuck is Comcast able to snoop your packets yet claim common-carrier-like status?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If they were calling this a discount for accepting advertising instead of a premium for lack of it, nobody would have an issue with this. The only difference between the two is that this is a stealth price increase that they hope will bypass regulators' notice (it might).
Mainly, this means that Comcast's PR people are idiots, but that's hardly news.
It should more correctly read "Comcast Wants To Charge Broadband Users More"
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Is extortion or shakedown a better word to describe the practice?
Using Unlock, Ghostery, Disconnect.me, and the like, are forbidden under our new Terms of Service. If you want these features, you must buy them from us in the new Privacy Plus package, only $40 (for six months).
Comcast is so full of shit.
More reason for the government to take over internet access, run the fiber, and hook every house up, no caps or snooping. Provide the pipe and get out of the way.
That was what "net neutrality" was supposed to accomplish. Yet, every day since then the motherfuckers have been trying more and more shitty tricks to do an end-run around the new laws or get them overturned.
Some actual ENFORCEMENT of the law might give those assholes pause when they try thinking of their next trick to screw the consumers harder and deeper.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
From what we've seen, companies have a massive incentive to violate consumer privacy in the form of free-market competition for advertising. The better the ad-platform, the higher the market value, etc. With this model, businesses who fail to deliver on explicitly purchased privacy are immediately guilty of false advertising. More than that, Comcast may have a vested interest in keeping -others- from snooping, too. It's good advertising to say your broadband connection actively combats to prevent unauthorized cross-site scripting. It creates a lucrative consumer market -for- privacy protection. Like it or not, money usually gets more done than government mandates.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Where are you getting your France numbers from? According to my wife who lived in France for 2 years (albeit around 5 years ago), she got faster internet, home phone, TV, and wireless service for about what we pay today in the US for just internet.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
And now you can pay MORE to have them claim they're not watching what you do online! Joy!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You assume that 10% margin isn't subject to all kinds of legal tax voodoo first...which I highly suspect is the case. Considering other providers in countries can provide the same (well, better anyhow) service for significantly LESS I really doubt comcast is really operating on that margin.
See 'hollywood accounting' for examples of those who have made an art of it.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
So what corporate America is saying is that privacy is only for the wealthy now? They have the right to data mine the personal info of the poor for profit and force them to be bombarded by advertisements designed to fool the viewer into thinking they need whatever it is they're being told they need ( pretty much brain wash them into buying more and more Chinese made crap)?
--- Keep the choice with the user..
So, the money from selling your data, both today and in the future, has already been booked and spent. So, from Comcast's point of view, they're losing money. From our point of view, Comcast can fuck right off with their selling us bullshit, but since they've already spent the money, they think of it as a loss. Assholes.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It would be interesting to know if Comcast makes any attempt to differentiate VoIP calls from other IP traffic and avoid snooping on it.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Some French guy on Slashdot was talking about how he gets free mobile phone with 2 hours of talk and spends ~30 euros ($32) on 10Mbit DSL yesterday, and couldn't believe American internet was so expensive ($80).
Quantify "faster" and "about what we pay today" with numbers.
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Perhaps, yet that's still an unsubstantiated "I think they're lyin' and I think they're rich" argument, instead of a rational argument.
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Not only should it not be legal, they should be obligated to give 100% of the ill-gotten gains they've received from doing so in the past to the customers whose privacy they violated.
Who did what now?
Comcast is more than likely engaging in "Hollywood" accounting so I would take anything they say publicly with pillar of salt.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
We know whose payroll you're on...
The problem is the Government, the solution isn't MORE Government, it is less. Get the government out of Franchising rights of ways to private industry. THE solution is to have the municipality lay the "roads" in such a way that we don't care if FedEx or UPS or DHL are delivering packages. Pave the road so that ANY enterprise can use it. Last mile is the problem, solve it there.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
comcast: "Pay us or we will spill your beans to the highest bidders" me: "no!!! and I just cancelled your service"
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Most space people live in are already fully wired paid for by your taxes. They don't each need a set of wires, they just need to share the infrastructure the tax payer has paid for. These companies have been getting billions per year to build out their infrastructure yet none of them do. The FCC needs to hold all these companies to their promises they made or withdraw further funding.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
how much you want to bet that even if you pay to opt out, Comcast will still be collecting personal data about you and selling it.
The solution is the same amount of government, just less overreach so they can effectively enforce the policies that are in place. That means scaling back shit the government wants in favor of assigning those resources to things the people need. Like enforcement of existing laws regarding anti-competitive practices and privacy violations.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
and stopping them from doing so would raise broadband rates.
It doesn't matter what they claim, being a customer of Comcast will cause them to raise rates. I've lived in the same area for well over a decade. Originally I had Adelphia until they fell apart and were absorbed by Comcast. I paid $35/ month for my internet. It has been creeping up over the years since Comcast took over and my last couple of bills have been $95/ month. Up from $85/ month until recently.
Except it can't, because the latter option is unethical and should be criminal!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
God, Comcast is the friggin' worst. I escalated a security risk to Comcast a few months back. Exposed passwords, ssh keys, infrastructure scripts (.exp, .sh, .awk), logs, etc. Pretty deep shit. It took a few hours to get ahold of someone to fix it, but they actually fixed it really surprisingly quickly afterwards and held a meeting later in the day. They brought up potentially starting up a bug bounty and starting me as a pilot of it, kind of.
Welp, I eventually got in contact with their CISO and asked her about it. "It's not a bug bounty program, so we're not going to pay you."
Very clear what their intentions are with privacy, security, etc.
"Most space people live in are already fully wired paid for by your taxes"
Um, from the curb to my router is wiring paid for by ME.
But the miles of hardline and cables that bring signal to me are usually built by the evil cable company, and they paid for those, and it's fair that they either be compensated for sharing, or paid for taking it, or left alone.
Municipalities that gave exclusive franchises will find that making them non-exclusive will initially result in much higher costs for subscribers, and then sharing the cable plant will be expensive to competitors. Hanging new cable is not cheap. Once you get into that, it's Economics 101. There is no magic.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Will using TOR defeat their snooping? I'd think it would. Also I routinely use HTTPS Everywhere and Redirect Cleaner; or do they do man-in-the-middle attacks on my encrypted traffic so they can snoop on that, too?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
I support Comcast on this one:
LEGAL BASIS
This does not violate network neutrality. Data sent over ISP is not protected by any other laws I know. It's legal.
FINANCIAL BASIS
My internet is cheaper, and no less secure.
TECHNICAL BASIS
The explicit spying incentivizes HTTPS adoption.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Yes, when both parties have a choice whether or not to enter into that agreement. I don't trust Microsoft, so I don't use their free services. Google so far hasn't abused my info, so I use their free services. (I set up a different email for each company, and google@myname.com hasn't gotten spam. microsoft@myname.com regularly gets spam. Indicating Google has kept my email address with them secret, while Microsoft has sold it for profit.)
All this goes out the window when the ISP is a government-granted monopoly. Monopoly = I don't have a choice. So hell no. A government-granted monopoly should not be able to obtain anything from its customers except a government-approved amount of cash.
Otherwise, it's a ripoff. And that's WITH privacy.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
But take away their carrier privileges.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Anyone ever hear of a piece of software that will generate random HTTP requests to random websites? I want to generate huge amount of 'random noise' so Comcast loses any 'signal' they could get out of me. Doesn't need to load whole pages, just needs to do something like a basic GET of a page, throw the data away, then another, and so on, until you shut it down. I think hundreds of thousands or millions of random page requests per month will more or less screw any of their 'snooping'.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Vinny believes he should be able to charge local businesses who want to protect their shops...Vinny says that charging local businesses more money for to opt out of "random security checks" should be considered a perfectly acceptable business model....
"... stopping them from doing so would raise broadband rates ..."
I don't believe there is anything here on this Earth or anywhere in the freakin' Universe that could ever stop US broadband providers from continuously rising their incredibly high prices. About privacy, you should've already gotten used to loosing all versions of it - both in the US and elsewhere -, and don't expect to actually have better privacy even if you end up paying for it. They'll still give every information to everyone asking for it, plus, do you really think they'd get your money and invest in actually protecting your privacy? Right.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The reason this is BS (and totally unreasonable) is that turning a customer's privacy into a commodity is wrong. Like the anti-Net Neutrality argument, you can't make a case for this using blinkered economics that avoid the ethical/moral issues.
Here in Chicago they are now charging $10/month rental fee for their modems. But if you buy your modem, and they have to send a tech out to you, they charge $50 per visit even if the problem has nothing to do with the modem. Insane price hikes all over the place with these crooks and the service isn't very good to begin with. But because I live in an apartment building, I don't have a choice of providers.
They're already harming consumers. They should be forced to sit down, STFU, and be given a government regulation colonic that purges the excrement from their consumer policies.
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
Your argument is that it's unethical to enable people to access things they couldn't otherwise access. Ethics are bullshit, man. Ethics are what you use to excuse "X is wrong, but my ethical guidelines say I must X, so I will X." Ethics are why you withhold life-saving medication and watch people die, slowly and painfully. After WW2, when the Nazis were put out of power, people came across all this documented medical research; they debated *not* using it because it would be *unethical*, because it was the result of human experimentation--they would rather commit the atrocity of letting people suffer and die than commit no atrocity while handling information derived from atrocities already committed.
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Of course I can. The strongest case I can make is nobody is selling my private identifying information--bank accounts, social security numbers, credit cards--or my personal life. They're selling records of my public interaction, or aggregate statistics.
People get all up-in-arms about something like Facebook selling statistics that they have some number of users who, between certain hours, have interest in My Little Ponies *and* are 28-35. They sell advertising in blocks like that, and someone buys an ad, and you get shown an ad targeting you based on your behavior. Folks go, "OH MY GOD THEY'RE SELLING MY PERSONAL INFORMATION!" ... well, yes. This matters how?
The answer is it only matters because it personally offends someone in some nebulous way. The practical impact on anyone's and everyone's privacy is NOTHING.
It's a bunch of noise from a bunch of idiots who have no idea what the fuck is going on, but want to brandish their nerd-cred by crying privacy for every fucking thing while they run personal web servers that log IP addresses.
If you were so concerned about privacy, maybe you'd lobby to make police body cameras illegal to protect the privacy of the officers, too; for that matter, people shouldn't be able to look at you when you're outside, and cars should be largely invisible and not have license plates because that's waving your privacy all over the place. Of course all of those things have concrete, identifiable leads back to someone's personal, individual activity; and they all occur in public, where the information is visible by many third-parties; and nobody actually cares, and will argue (finally with some sanity) that things like recording the police should be legal if for no other reason than because they're IN A PUBLIC PLACE AND CAN'T EXPECT PRIVACY--but HEAVEN HELP THEM if they have a PHOTOGRAPH of YOUR CAR driving down a PUBLIC ROAD, because that's INVADING YOUR PRIVACY!
You can't even identify most of the private information they must be selling; and the information you can identify, you can't figure out why it might impinge on your privacy. Like an asinine patent troll, all you can do is assert that metrics and numbers and ideals describing groups of people built up from individual sampling are magically dangerous to you now, somehow, because, although this has been done for literally hundreds of years, it's now being done "ON A COMPUTER".
Mass hysteria, because the masses are idiots.
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No freaking way! Here in the USA, we have a Constitutional right to privacy - as a FUNDAMENTAL right, thus a GIVEN. ANY party, whether another citizen, or a corporate entity, is OBLIGATED to honor that privacy as a FREE and UNALIENABLE right.
Thus, if you want to know something about my private life, YOU need to pay ME - IF, and only IF, I decide to sell you my privacy.
Corporate biz models have gotten severely twisted; such that these entities seem to think that they have rights beyond a HUMAN citizen. They have taken capitalism beyond where it serves ALL people. Capitalism needs to be severely regulated so as NOT to allow any infringement on PEOPLES' rights. It is NOT in the best interest for any entity to have the unregulated right to decide what is in MY best interest. Knowing my 'private' stuff does NOT necessarily paint an accurate picture of me. It only gives you a tool (i.e. weapon) to subvert things (i.e.money) from me.
If you want to know what products I might be interested in, then ASK me!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
There, we are at last discussing why it sucks to have any digital information on the clouds.
"Say, that's pretty nice personal information you got there.
Be a shame if anyone got their hands on it...."
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.