AT&T is charging an extra $29/month to opt out of “tracking information”(businessinsider.com) |
AT&T is charging an extra $29/month to opt out of “tracking information”(businessinsider.com) |
1) It assumes privacy is not a right, but a priveledge you pay for. People who can't afford ~$360/year have just as much right to privacy as those who can. This is what government regulation is for, to prevent the negative consequences of open marketplace competition.
2) It's a limited, almost pointless solution. Everyone else can track you: Your phone provider knows everwhere you go, everyone you communicate with, what you say to them, etc. On your computer, websites, ad networks, hosted services (Google, Facebook, etc.). Your electric company, your TV, your credit card company, etc. etc. AT&T might buy info from other sources on the customers who pay to prevent ISP tracking. (And what if each of those vendors charged $360/year for the priveledge of privacy?) Again, the only solution is government regulation; individuals can't hope to protect themselves.
3) It's expensive, as expensive as a cheap Internet connection.
Is it priced at cost plus a margin? If so, that implies each user's tracking data is worth maybe $20/month to AT&T. That seems very high; if users only knew what they were giving away!
Or is it priced at what AT&T thinks the market will bear? Is there really a market for limited privacy at $30/month?
[1] the fact that a perfect filter is impossible isn't relevant - it just has to be good enough to catch "enough" to allow a parent to think they have "protected" their kid from the scary things on the internet.
[2] Finding things on the internet that would qualify ss "obscene" is trivial, especially if someone were to get creative in how they apoply Miller Test style "community standards".
Does DigitalOcean track you any less than AT&T?
$5/month on DO gets you 1TB of transfer at who-knows-how-much mbps.
Any other ideas?
Oh good, your gigabit fiber is now limited to 500GB/month at 5mbps or less.
Other information from the use of Google Fiber Internet (such as URLs of websites visited or content of communications) will not be associated with the Google Account you use for Fiber, except with your consent or to meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
Also, note that they explicitly say they'll tie your TV-viewing habits to your Google account. It's easy to overlook this, but TV ad revenue is still 50% higher than online ad revenue, so this is a major synergy.
It references their general Google privacy policy to show how they use information about you. The same privacy policy that allows them to stalk you across the world.
Also even if they didn't, Google has a monopoly over search engines, so this just vertical integration. It would be like Microsoft saying "we don't spy on OneDrive, but Google spies on Google Drive!" while microsoft then spies using Windows it knows that 95% of users will have installed. Distinction without a difference IMO.