RT NewsAT&T has announced that it will begin selling customers’ smart phone data to the highest bidder, putting the telecommunications giant in line with Verizon, Facebook and other competitors that quietly use a consumer’s history for marketing purposes.
The company claims its new privacy policy, to be updated within “the next few weeks,” exists to “deliver more relevant advertising” to users based on which apps they use and their location, which is provided by GPS-tracking. Apparently recognizing the natural privacy concerns a customer might have, AT&T assured the public that all data would be aggregated and made anonymous to prevent individual identification.
A letter to customers, for instance, described how someone identified as a movie fan will be sent personalized ads for a nearby cinema.
“People who live in a particular geographic area might appear to be very interested in movies, thanks to collective information that shows wireless devices from that area are often located in the vicinity of movie theaters,” the letter states. “We might create a ‘movie’ characteristic for that area, and deliver movie ads to the people who live there.”
A June 28 blog post from AT&T’s chief privacy officer Bob Quinn said the new policy will focus on “Providing You Service and Improving Our Network and Services,” but the online reaction has been overwhelmingly negative, with many customers looking for a way to avoid the new conditions.
“You require that we allow you to store a persistent cookie of your choosing in our web browsers to opt out,” one person wrote. “No mention of how other HTTP clients, such as email clients, can opt out. If you really did care about your customers, you would provide a way for us to opt out all traffic to/from our connection and mobile devices in one easy setting.”
One problem for any customer hoping for a new service is the lack of options, smartphone or otherwise. Facebook, Google, Twitter and Verizon each store consumer data for purposes that have not yet been made clear. And because of the profit potential that exists when a customer blindly trusts a company with their data, small Internet start-ups, including AirSage and many others, have developed a way to streamline information into dollars.
The nefarious aspect of AT&T’s announcement is underscored by the recent headlines around the National Security Agency, which has spent years has compelling wireless corporations to hand over data collected on millions of Americans. Unfortunately for the privacy of those concerned, AT&T’s new policy may only be a sign of things to come.
“Instead of merely offering customers a trusted conduit for communication, carriers are coming to see subscribers as sources of data that can be mined for profit, a practice more common among providers of free online services like Google and Facebook,” the Wall Street Journal wrote about the matter in May.
Expect ALL corporations to sell you lousy products, and sell (or give) all available information about you to government agents.
YOU empower the corporations by buying or using their products, and YOU empower the tyrants by refusing to exercise your constitutional rights when you should be demanding that they be respected.
The less sacrifice you’re willing to make now, will result in more sacrifice being necessary later, and the less fighting you’re willing to do now, will result in harder fighting that you’ll have to do later. It will be a lot easier to win the war if it remains a war of words, as it is now. Remain silent now and it’ll be a war of bullets soon enough.
When you stop fighting, you start dying.
Boy it wasn’t too hard to call that one out when it happened to Verizon. This just proves that corporations are all out of control. Like Henry said, “I bet the elite just sit there everyday laughing at us saying, ‘We stole their information. Are they gonna kill us yet? No? (Elite snickering) I can’t believe it. What else can we get them on?” I mean this is where we are at people until WE F**KING STAND UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!
I’m already fighting with my electric company on being charged a $45 fee that I never agreed to (which they are now dropping off my bill and crediting me back) and for walking on the road and breathing the community air (I’m serious) and even paying them $10 every month, just to be a customer with them.WTF? How sick is that? And since they have a monopoly on the area, I can’t switch to another provider and they say, “If you have any questions, talk to the city council”. So please people, get up off your ass and do something. Stop expecting others to do something first and step up an take the initiative.!