AT&T new regs.

[Floydr47]

AT&T alters privacy policy, may share customers' TV, internet data

Staff Report
The Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS - AT&T Incorporated is changing its privacy policy for Internet and television customers to specify that account information is a business record the company owns and can be disclosed to government and law enforcement and to protect the company's "legitimate business interests."

AT&T said that the account information, which includes the customer's name, address, telephone number and e-mail address as well as information about the customer's services, constitute business records and are owned by AT&T. The company said account information doesn't include usage information, such as how a person uses the Web or what programs a person using the company's television service watches.

The San Antonio company may disclose customer information "in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims," the company said in the policy update, which was sent to 7-million Internet and television customers. The new policy took effect Friday.
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Looks like AT&T is covering their...er, all the bases.

[jur1st]

Re: AT&T new regs.

This seems to be reasonable...what exacly changed?

[Floydr47]

Re: AT&T new regs.

"They're obviously trying to avoid a hornet's nest of consumer-protection lawsuits," said Chris Hoofnagle, a San Francisco privacy consultant and former senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"They've written this new policy so broadly that they've given themselves maximum flexibility when it comes to disclosing customers' records," he said.
It says the company "may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process," omitting the earlier language about such processes being "required and/or permitted by law."

AT&T is being sued by San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly allowing the NSA to tap into the company's data network, providing warrantless access to customers' e-mails and Web browsing.
AT&T is also believed to have participated in President Bush's acknowledged domestic spying program, in which the NSA was given warrantless access to U.S. citizens' phone calls.

Gail Hillebrand, a staff attorney at Consumers Union in San Francisco, said the declaration that AT&T owns customers' data represents the most significant departure from the company's previous policy.
"It creates the impression that they can do whatever they want," she said. "This is the real heart of AT&T's new policy and is a pretty fundamental difference from how most customers probably see things."
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What's new about it is that they have made a major policy change of customer's rights.

[TheCotMan]

Re: AT&T new regs.

Who wants to wear a tinfoil hat?
Way back "when", an exception was made to allow MS to export "Strong Crypto" SSL versions of MSIE outside the US, while permission for Netscape to do the same was lacking.
Conspiracy theorists went wild.
Later, through a release of an unstripped object/executable/library in a service patch, NSA_KEY was exposed, and questions were raised. Some said a deal was made in the courts but perhaps it was more a case of a condition to export strong crypto with MSIE?

Are your tinfoil hats screwed on tight?

AT&T is cooperating with the government. Other telephone companies are doing the same. Businesses run on profit. What incentive to profit exists in cooperating with the government?
Consider this: The telephone company is agressively campaigning for allowing the phone company to delivery television-content to homes. Cable Companies are actively trying to block this. What advantage could the government offer the telephone companies to get more cooperation from them?


Muwhahahaahahahah.

[Floydr47]

Re: AT&T new regs.

Who wants to wear a tinfoil hat?
Way back "when", an exception was made to allow MS to export "Strong Crypto" SSL versions of MSIE outside the US, while permission for Netscape to do the same was lacking.
Conspiracy theorists went wild.
Later, through a release of an unstripped object/executable/library in a service patch, NSA_KEY was exposed, and questions were raised. Some said a deal was made in the courts but perhaps it was more a case of a condition to export strong crypto with MSIE?

Are your tinfoil hats screwed on tight?

AT&T is cooperating with the government. Other telephone companies are doing the same. Businesses run on profit. What incentive to profit exists in cooperating with the government?
Consider this: The telephone company is agressively campaigning for allowing the phone company to delivery television-content to homes. Cable Companies are actively trying to block this. What advantage could the government offer the telephone companies to get more cooperation from them?


Muwhahahaahahahah.

What a great conspiracy theory, far better than anything I could have came up with...CotMan, will you be my new hero?

[zorch]

Re: AT&T new regs.

AT&T is cooperating with the government. Other telephone companies are doing the same. Businesses run on profit. What incentive to profit exists in cooperating with the government?

Almost every telco on the planet has already been gathering this information for several years. They use a third party application called Ensemble from a company named Amdocs.

Amdocs then does data mining and customer profiling for marketing and anti-fraud purposes, among other uses.

When VZ and SBC claim they had no deal with the NSA, I believe them. They had a deal with Amdocs, and Amdocs provided the data.

On a side note, look at the Data Retention legislation currently being hammered out by the fatasses in DC. They are going to legislate what the Common Carriers have wanted for years; Huge databases of user data for data-mining, profiling, marketing and resale.

4 years ago Comcast tried to do a weaker version of this with Squid proxies, and public outcry shut it down. Now they have the fuds requiring them to do much more detailed and invasive logging in the name of stopping kiddie pr0n.

Another thoroughly fucked part of this story is the testimony before congress that inspired it. Prosecunt Nancy Grace (of CNN fame) paraded a poster child for kiddie porn victims in front of the committee. The fact that she was allowed to be adopted by a middle aged single male pervert with a one-bedroom was completely overlooked. It's all the internet's fault.

"Send in another intern, the Senator needs some help with his mouse."