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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
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.
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!
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?
Using HTTPS does not prevent comcast knowing what websites you visit. It only prevents them seeing the content, and that is if they don't have a certificate position in your browser's trusted certificate store.
If they do have a trusted certificate (which could easily be installed by their "Here, run this program to set up your new Comcast service. Be sure to run it on every PC!"... anyway if they do end up tricking you into trusting their certificate, HTTPS is useless to you because they can just MITM you (like a lot of ISPs and most employers already do).
HTTPS is pretty worthless as a privacy measure.
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.
From the article:
"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.
So, unfortunately, instead of actually solving the real problem - the lack of competition, the FCC thinks "basic privacy rules might be a good idea." I mean, while I agree with that, it's just papering over the real issue. I understand that the FCC itself can't do anything about that, but I just can't see anything changing for the better in any significant way until we manage to break Comcast's near stranglehold on many areas of the market.
Also, Comcast's arguments about trading services for user information neglects to mention one tiny little fact: Most of the services that provide users a service in exchange for harvesting user information are providing a completely free service, like G-mail or Facebook, and many users seem to be fine with that. Comcast is "double dipping" - charging a significant amount for a paid service AND also trying to earn more by snooping on their customers. That's a completely different thing, and Comcast will have a hard time convincing anyone that they need to do this to remain profitable or that this is forcing them to keep rates high. The notion that allowing them to snoop on users would actually end up lowering rates is laughable. Users don't have any choices in many cases, so there's no pressure on them to keep rates competitive.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
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... --
RICO violation.
This is extortion pure and simple though.
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.
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
Yeah, because privacy is a privalege, not a right...
(Rolls eyes)
Are you so myopic that you cannot see that when you have to purchase privacy, you don't actually have privacy at all, and worse still, only the wealthy will be able to afford it.
Do you really not see how this will lead to shocking double standards, how it will lead down to dystopia-land, and how it stems from a very wrong headed idea that simply because a dollar can be squeezed out of something, it should thus be squeezed out?
Instead, what actually NEEDS to happen, is for government to stop having a hardon for violating privacy (it feeds this downward trend into shitville), and tell these asshats in no uncertain terms they are NOT allowed to monetize a natural right of human kind, and thus NOT allowed to pretend they are entitled to that higher monetization, and thus NOT ENTITLED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES TO SECURE THAT NATUAL RIGHT.
But of course, "comcast is right here", i mean, what was i thinking, insisting that a major corporation not actively act in a manner contrary to civilization. I mean, there' money to be made violating people's rights! The only rights that matter are the rights to extract as much "value" as possible! Glory to the divinity of the allmighty dollar!
I think i will be sick.
The competition problem is the last mile problem. Fix the last mile problem by moving the end point for Comcast from the Home/Business to a COLO facility managed by the local municipality. Then open up the doors to any / all competition at the COLO facility.
That way, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Google, HBO ONLY, Netflix .... can all offer their version of "service" as needed, even enhancing their offerings with new and innovative services such as Comcast's "snoopvertising" suite. Then we can let the market decide what TV shows and Internet the market wants.
I realize that this is an ALIEN concept of letting FREE ENTERPRISE solve problems by having the Government get out of the way. No Need for ANY regulation to control Net Neutrality or even needed the FCC to rule on the crap Comcast is spewing.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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.
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
This is basically the model of municipal roads.
The municipality builds the roads, and private industry uses them to provide whatever services they can think to sell that involve transportation. The government doesn't really get into the transportation business or businesses built on transportation of goods.
There are minor exceptions, like the post office or mass transit, but there's also generally demand for this or some long-settled precedent for providing them. But there's no calling city hall to order a pizza.