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Ask Slashdot: ISPs That Respect Your Online Privacy?

Posted by msmash on from the help-a-man-out dept.

New submitter Rick Schumann writes: According to this story just posted here on Slashdot, Comcast is playing about as dirty as they can get. This is just about the last straw for me; are there any ISPs in the United States that actually respect your online privacy?

9 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Re: yes, Sonic in californua by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They are awesome
    www.sonic.net

    They respect privacy, and only the minimum required by law , then delete it

  2. Sonic.net in Northern California by fightinfilipino · · Score: 4, Informative

    they're also loud proponents of Net Neutrality.

    1. Re:Sonic.net in Northern California by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

      Why are you implying that "Iarwain Ben-adar", myself (the submitter of this entire subject) or anyone else at all has something to hide and that's why they want their BASIC RIGHT TO PRIVACY honored? As shocking as it might be to you, there is still such a thing as 'principles', and the 'principle' of individual privacy still counts to some of us. Why (apparently) does it not matter to you?

    2. Re:Sonic.net in Northern California by skam240 · · Score: 2

      Sonic is just about everything i want an ISP to be.

      A number of years ago now my Dad was having computer problems not related to his internet connection. Instead of calling me (he's weird with asking for help) he took his computer to a nearby sonic office. After a brief wait in their lobby somebody came out and fixed whatever issue he was having free of charge. They were super nice about it too from what he says. I dont think i've ever even heard of such a positive customer service experience coming from any other ISP before

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  3. I thankfully have a municipal ISP by enjar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am in one of the rare US municipalities with a non-profit ISP. It's part of the town power and light company, and they also provide cable and phone service. Prices are fair, service is great and the vast majority of the employees are people who live here. We've had our speeds upped a few times at no additional cost, and we even got a refund on our power bill when the power company ran a surplus.

    When asked about them selling information, the answer was a loud and clear "NO, we never sell information about our customers".

    The downsides of this setup are that the support hours are not 24/7, and some services/equipment can lag. But given that I've not experienced significant downtime in 10+ years, I can deal with it.

  4. Wrong Question... by link-error · · Score: 2

        The question should be, "Which is the best VPN service to use?"

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  5. Re:Not trying to troll here... serious question: by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 2

    What I shop for, where I shop, what I buy, where I buy it, what I look at for entertainment, what times of the day I use the internet, what times of day I pay my utility bills, who I send and receive email from, etc etc etc are none of anybodys' gods-be-damned business, that's why. The real question here is: why do you NOT care? Do you like having complete strangers make all sorts of assumptions about you and your life? How would you like it if you were denied employment you're fully qualified for, because they bought collected information about you from ISPs and other websites (because nobody told them they weren't allowed to do that), and they made assumptions about you based on that? What if you were arrested for something you had nothing to do with based on your web browsing habits? What if your health insurance rates go up because they discovered that you occasionally use the internet to order a pizza? I could go on and on. Chances are you'll just scoff at all this as nonsense, but the FACT of the matter is that in a world where you can't even take a shit without some complete stranger knowing about it, you end up not in control of your own life anymore -- even worse than it already is. At the very least the rampant collection of your very personal internet usage fills your email with even more SPAM; do you not care about that, either?

    At least give a damn about this because OTHER PEOPLE give a damn about it. Why should your lack of caring about it mean that everyone else has to put up with shitty companies snooping into our lives constantly? How is THAT right?

  6. Ars Technica article about Sonic.net by skam240 · · Score: 2

    Also, here's a nice piece on them from Ars. A little old but relevant.
    https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

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  7. The ISP Privacy Pledge by _ivan · · Score: 3, Informative

    About two dozen small ISPs (including sonic.net) have signed the ISP Privacy Pledge

    Does one of them serve your area? Perhaps you should consider giving them your business.

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