In a not so surprizing move ATT has changed it's policy. As of Friday, the rules have changes according to ATT. Your "private data" is no longer yours if you use ATT for you phone or DSL.
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."
Well ain't that special? This is contrary to everything we have believed in the past. I imagine with this new rule they believe a search warrant won't be needed anymore. Talk about a Brazen CYA move. More below
Since ATT has been allegedly (cough) involved in Illegal Spying on American Citizens they have been feeling quite a bit of heat. Just today :
The House Judiciary Committee unexpectedly passed a Democratic resolution Wednesday morning calling on the Justice Department to turn over all requests made by the National Security Agency and other federal agencies to telephone service providers to obtain information without a warrant.
You can bet ATT doesn't want that info out there. The lawsuits alone could bring this giant to a new low, and maybe even endanger a pending deal they want badly. Even Conyers had a little something to say.
Conyers said in a statement. "We do not know how trillions of phone call records were obtained, nor how they are being used. And there is no guarantee that this private information will ever be destroyed."
This move today shocked many you can bet. More on the resolution is at Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/... The story itself is from can be found at SFGate.
http://www.sfgate.com/... Let me continue for sec, then you are free to comment or run of to read the details. Here are some of the details, but in the practice of Fair Use, this will be the last quote from the article, so please go do some reading if you are a ATT customer.
"While your account information may be personal to you, these records constitute business records that are owned by AT&T," the new policy declares. "As such, AT&T may disclose such records to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."
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."
The new policy states that AT&T "may also use your information in order to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud (or) situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person" -- conditions that would appear to embrace any terror-related circumstance.
I don't know about the rest of you, but to me this whole thing is out of hand. I don't use ATT, but I expect my carrier to follow suit fairly quickly if ATT is allowed to get away with this abuse of our privacy.
Update: Seems the NYT has picked up the story. They don't have much to say except this little gem I had noticed before. What it says is you have to agree to the deal of them " owning" your info. Once you do that, what recourse , if any, would you have?
It also said that before customers use its services they must agree to the policy, an element that was not in its previous guidelines.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-telecoms-att-privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin