AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn’t yours
AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers’ personal data with government officials. The new policy says that AT&T — not customers — owns customers’ confidential info and can use it “to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.”
All your base are belong to us….
Most Americans believe (not without some justification) that they believe that their personal information is their own. Well, guess what, y’all? If you’re a customer of AT&T- and most of us, sadly, are- that is about to no longer be the case. If you do business with AT&T, you will cease to have ANY control over any personal information in the company’s possession. Yes, when the rules of the game don’t work the way the company wants them to, they simply change them to their advantage. Since AT&T is such an anti-competitive behemoth, they can do this and get away with it. What, like a Republican-controlled government is going to do ANYTHING to protect your privacy rights? Get real….
It’s possible, I suppose, that a large, vocal, and organized protest might convince AT&T to reverse course, but most Americans will neither read the fine print nor much concern themselves with the possible repercussions of this “privacy” policy. Without government intervention (which will happen about the same time I become Queen of England), AT&T will use our personal information for their own benefit in whatever way they see fit.
Memo from AT&T to its customers: GO F—K YOURSELF….
Moreover, AT&T (formerly known as SBC) is requiring customers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition for service — a new move that legal experts say will reduce customers’ recourse for any future data sharing with government authorities or others.
AT&T’s new policy (and the accompanying total disregard for it’s customers) should scare the Hell out of any thinking person. Simply by doing business with AT&T, Americans now are exposed to the risk of their personal information being turned over to government, sold to marketers, or used for any other purpose that AT&T deems appropriate. The way the policy is written, the mere act of doing business with AT&T connotes acceptance of their new “privacy” policy. No one should be surprised about this, of course. Anyone who has ever downloaded software from the Internet is familiar with this tactic.
The problem of course, is that AT&T is so big, it’s tentacles so intertwined in to virtually all aspects of American economic life that there is little that can be done to stop the company once it puts its mind to something. Where does an 800-lb. gorilla sit? Yes, that’s right; anywhere it wants to. So when you start thinking that your personal information is just that- personal- keep this in mind. If you’re an AT&T customer, and most of us are, “privacy” and “personal” information no longer exist. We are all under the thumb of Big Brother…and we’re paying for the “privilege”.
