http://www.geeknewscentral.com/2007/06/13/att-to-spy-and-report-directly-to-mpaa-and-riaa/ Geek News Central is the technical site for Geeks. We Spin tech for the common man. With a Family of Tech Shows and Content. Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:38:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.geeknewscentral.com/2007/06/13/att-to-spy-and-report-directly-to-mpaa-and-riaa/comment-page-1/#comment-3558 anonymous Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:17:48 +0000 http://www.geeknewscentral.com/2007/06/13/att-to-spy-and-report-directly-to-mpaa-and-riaa/#comment-3558 "While I do not condone file sharing I really am very critical of companies that say they are going to spy on their customers. This is a really bad move on AT&T’s part and while my account will probably not be missed I was very clear to tell the customer service person why I was canceling my long distance service with them." <span class="mt-export2wp"></span> I just wanted to point out that AT&T has already been violating our privacy for some time. They had no troubles whatsoever with giving the NSA full rights to spy on people at will without needing a warrant or anything. Frankly, if spying on Internet traffic bugs you, you should have quit their service quite some time ago. It's amazing just how many rights dissapear instantly when someone says that "it's for the war against terrorism." I'm reminded all too much of Orwell's 1984 sometimes. While much of it is impossible, some of it is frighteningly possible, and "national security" and "anti-terrorism" buzzwords are all they need to make much of it happen... <span class="mt-export2wp"></span> Sadly, the problem with this whole business is that there are a lot of locations where customers really have little choice but to use AT&T. In many parts of the US, about the only alternative to AT&T broadband is some dialup service (often over an AT&T phone line even...) So what are customers who do need bandwidth to do if they don't like their ISP spying on them? If there are no decent alternatives, then it's pretty much a choice between being spied on or not being able to do any of the things that require a decent high speed connection... <span class="mt-export2wp"></span> IMO, AT&T should never have been allowed to recombine. The government originally split them up for a reason and they STILL have a monopoly on some of the US for services... “While I do not condone file sharing I really am very critical of companies that say they are going to spy on their customers. This is a really bad move on AT&T’s part and while my account will probably not be missed I was very clear to tell the customer service person why I was canceling my long distance service with them.”

I just wanted to point out that AT&T has already been violating our privacy for some time. They had no troubles whatsoever with giving the NSA full rights to spy on people at will without needing a warrant or anything. Frankly, if spying on Internet traffic bugs you, you should have quit their service quite some time ago. It’s amazing just how many rights dissapear instantly when someone says that “it’s for the war against terrorism.” I’m reminded all too much of Orwell’s 1984 sometimes. While much of it is impossible, some of it is frighteningly possible, and “national security” and “anti-terrorism” buzzwords are all they need to make much of it happen…

Sadly, the problem with this whole business is that there are a lot of locations where customers really have little choice but to use AT&T. In many parts of the US, about the only alternative to AT&T broadband is some dialup service (often over an AT&T phone line even…) So what are customers who do need bandwidth to do if they don’t like their ISP spying on them? If there are no decent alternatives, then it’s pretty much a choice between being spied on or not being able to do any of the things that require a decent high speed connection…

IMO, AT&T should never have been allowed to recombine. The government originally split them up for a reason and they STILL have a monopoly on some of the US for services…

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