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Canada's Bell Telecommunications Company Wants Permission To Gather, Track Customer Data (www.cbc.ca)
Bell Canada is asking customers for permission to track everything they do with their home and mobile phones, internet, television, apps or any other services they get through Bell or its affiliates. "In return, Bell says it will provide advertising and promotions that are more 'tailored' to their needs and preferences," reports CBC.ca. From the report: "Tailored marketing means Bell will be able to customize advertising based on participant account information and service usage patterns, similar to the ways that companies like Google and others have been doing for some time," the company says in recent notices to customers. If given permission, Bell will collect information about its customers' age, gender, billing addresses, and the specific tablet, television or other devices used to access Bell services. It will also collect the "number of messages sent and received, voice minutes, user data consumption and type of connectivity when downloading or streaming." "Bell's marketing partners will not receive the personal information of program participants; we just deliver the offers relevant to the program participants on their behalf," the company assures customers. Teresa Scassa, who teaches law at the University of Ottawa and holds the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy, says Bell customers who opt into Bell's new program could be giving away commercially valuable personal information with little to no compensation for increased risks to their privacy and security. "Here's a company that's taking every shred of personal information about me, from all kinds of activities that I engage in, and they're monetizing it. What do I get in return? Better ads? Really? That's it? What about better prices?"
Toronto-based consultant Charlie Wilton, whose firm has advised Bell and Rogers in the past, says: "I mean, in a perfect world, they would give you discounts or they would give you points or things that consumers would more tangibly want, rather than just the elimination of a pain point -- which is what they're offering right now."
Toronto-based consultant Charlie Wilton, whose firm has advised Bell and Rogers in the past, says: "I mean, in a perfect world, they would give you discounts or they would give you points or things that consumers would more tangibly want, rather than just the elimination of a pain point -- which is what they're offering right now."
While I live in the United States, I am strongly encouraging my Canadian brothers and sisters to not grant Bell Canada the right to harvest such information. Learn from the mistakes that we in the states made. We gave away our privacy and caused all kinds of headaches that can never be undone. It's like a nuclear bomb. You drop it and everything is fucked up forever. Please, Canadians, have a sudden outbreak of common sense. Corporations cannot ever be trusted with our data. Please don't make the mistake that the US sheeple did by placing all this unearned trust in the hands of corporate poison like Facebook, Twitter, and Google - even more.
When they ask you, you just say no. It's that simple.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Teresa Scassa, ... says Bell customers who opt into Bell's new program could be giving away commercially valuable personal information with little to no compensation for increased risks to their privacy and security.
What she meant to say was, "customers who unsuccessfully opt-out of Bell's new program" ...
[ We all know it's actually going to be like that. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I want my privacy. Full. Stop.
No, really Bell, I mean it. Stop, and stop now.
should NEVER be granted. Ever. But, the permission is likely more a ruse to see how far they can go when they get caught doing it anyway.
Anecdote: For many years, I have been a paying customer of Fastmail, still likely the best email money can buy. I had to leave due to the Australian Access and Assistance Bill, which basically gives the Australian government free reign to get past crypto be means of backdoors and other means. It's illegal even to discuss it there. It's a 10-year jail sentence to try and prevent them from doing it. And it's illegal for companies to discuss whether or not they have been targets or their software has been compromised. We, collectively, had better start doing something about all of the tracking and crypto stuff or we're going to end up like Minority Report.
Everybody in the audience gets a VPN. And if you have a good ad-blocker, I'd go with that too, just in case.
Seriously, are there alternatives to Bell in Canada, or any privacy laws to protect consumer privacy or rights?
What do I get in return? Better ads? Really? That's it? What about better prices?"
The satisfaction of knowing Bell Canada will get higher revenues and bigger profit margins.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Bell Canada ranks up there with anyone else in the world for most evil corporation.
Or move away from Bell.
"I mean, in a perfect world, they would give you discounts or they would give you points or things that consumers would more tangibly want, rather than just the elimination of a pain point -- which is what they're offering right now."
I eliminated my pain point with pfSense, Pi-Hole, VPN and bunch of Firefox add-ons close to two years ago.
1. They will Overpromise
2. They will Underdeliver
3. They will Overcharge
Corporatism != Free Market
For ads?
"In return, Bell says it will provide advertising and promotions that are more 'tailored' to their needs and preferences"
No thanks.
Bell has always been garbage and this just keep on proving it. Just get your internet from a Reseller instead, not only is it cheaper, they also aren't scummy and actually fight for your rights.. Like Teksavvy.
Wow, in exchange for tracking everything I do you offer me targeted ads?
Holy much fucking hell of a goddamned motherfucking panopticon can you get?
No, sorry, I do not consent to you tracking me, and wherever possible I will use ad blockers.
Of course, the sad thing is they're going to track you anyway, and not give you anything in return.
Welcome to the Purge, gentlemen, as sport I offer you every executive and management of every telcomm company anywhere .. have at it.
Fucking assholes.
Most Canadians just love dealing with Bell or Rogers, even when given other options. But options do vary across the country, and in some areas there literally aren't other choices. Bell is awful and Rogers has been injecting ads into television for years. In London, Ontario, both my cable internet and cell phone are with different independent companies. One of them is based out of London. The small companies work really hard to improve things, fighting against established giants and against a biased government oversight agency called the CRTC. But in general, Canadians ignore them and complain about their service to anyone but the providers, perpetuating their own misery. It's truly bizarre how enduring horrid telco service is treated like a patriotic duty.
I have a friend who used to do marketing for a provincial lottery commission. Her job was literally to make people want to gamble more. We've all got to justify what we do, so it was improving the experience so people got the best value for their entertainment dollar.
When you repeat your justifications enough you start to believe them. The ad industry has told itself so many times that people *like* personalized ads that they think it's true. Bell is about to learn that it's not. I actually called them up recently and told them that they are, under no circumstances, to call me with any marketing whatsoever. This was after they rang me while I was travelling internationally. I answered because I thought it might be important. Nope.
I have to hand it to Google though. They've got this personalized ad thing down perfectly. I had never seen an ad on YouTube until I saw it under someone else's account. Google appears to have figured out that when I see an ad I go elsewhere.
So is Bell going to be using this targetted advertising ownly on their own properties? Or are they going to be replacing the ad content shown on non-bell properties and substituting their own ads? If the latter (which is what I suspect), then how is this not hijacking traffic to those sites? Will those sites get a cut of the ad revenue for bell's replacement ads?
Encrypt everything going out on a protected network.
Trust your ISP more than a VPN?
Need to do things that need trust? Do them in person with the bank/brand/utility/company because your ISP now wants to collect "internet" things.
Make a pretend computer full of automated web surfing for the advertising and promotions to collect on as part of an open network.
All part and parcel of *paying* for a modern ISP. Then to pay for a VPN to use the internet.
Then having to do less transaction online as the ISP likes to collect.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
They already know where you are. Down to the street address.
Landline user position is just static when compared to mobile ones.
Everything else, internet traffic included, is pretty much the same. Maybe just slightly tougher.
They are just looking for an official statement.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Get this in your heads. I don't want to see ads. Ever. For any reason. Be gone!
No, not wave it around, but to *poke it into some Bell executive's eye*.
Fuck you.
They ask politely.
Anyone else would have just done it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
at least they are offering lube before they bend you over royally yet again.
fucking canadian telecom is the worst in the world, and not going to improve any time soon.
Whatever happened to "if it's free, you're the product"? Now you're the product even when you pay. I guess we have Windows 10 to thank for proving how much people can put up with if you just force it on them. What sucks is that this could impact everyone on Canadian Internet, not just Bell subscribers, because even the competition's connections go through Bell's network.
Gotta love how this is coming from Bell, who is already the nation's most expensive ISP with enormous activation fees and forced modem rentals. They never get tired of crying poor, even though they own about 1/3 of our telecommunications, 1/2 of our media and 1/5 of one of our hockey teams. So vry poor, plz giev ads monies plox.
I remember back in the dial-up days, there were a number of "free" Internet providers that required you to install a program that ran ads along the bottom of your screen. I enjoyed finding ways to cheat those systems back then (blocking the ads, spoofing the presence of the program, etc.), I suppose it's about time I get a VPN and cheat this new system. For the price of a Bell subscription I can get both a subscription with a VPN provider plus an ISP account with one of their competitors, so it won't be that much trouble.
If you live in a small town in Québec and think you have no alternative to Bell and Vidéotron, look up Teksavvy and Sogetel.
Let me get this straight: you PAY the mofos for service and even so they still want to capture your data and send you usuless advertisement?
Fuck that!
IT'S A TRAP!
If you're talking about a home connection (let's just say IP address) then you're not talking about one person.
I like horror movies, my wife won't touch them, my daughter gets nightmares.
It's bad enough that the iPad my daughter uses to watch My Little Pony on YouTube is signed in as the same account I use to watch Critical Role. The "you might be interested in" can get interesting.
When talking about cell phones it's more likely that it's a single user, but even then my daughter uses my cell phone to do things.
How far do you go with advertising? If I buy some Victoria's Secret for my wife then my daughter borrows my phone is she confronted with sexy ads? That's not cool.
I refuse to sign
If they ask me I'll say no to granting them that power but I don't think they'll ask me
CSIS already requires telecoms to gather and turn over this data. Law enforcement also has access to it. What they're really asking for is permission to sell it to other, non-government buyers. Not just to advertising agencies but to all kinds of organisations & companies that will find ways of profiting from it at our expense, including at the expense of democracy & human rights.
They plan to install spyware on your computers to rat on you for money.