Hey Folks, Please be careful when you read these policies so you can understand exactly what they say. This post really got me concerned, but AT&T has a pretty standard Privacy Policy. From AT&Ts web site:
"AT&T will not sell, trade, or disclose to third parties any customer identifiable information derived from the registration for or use of an AT&T online service -- including customer names and addresses -- without the consent of the customer (except as required by subpoena, search warrant, or other legal process or in the case of imminent physical harm to the customer or others)." You can find AT&T's entire Online Privacy Policy at http://www.att.com/privacy/. This is a standard privacy agreement. Obviously if the law (i.e. FBI) comes knocking on AT&Ts door and they have a warrant, etc., AT&T is going to provide law enforcement with the information they want, just as if law enforcement came to your door with a warrant to search your house. You really have no choice in the matter, and AT&T is required by federal law to provide said information IF requested to do so by a legal process. This is not news and is standard for any ISP. My old dial up account had the same policy. >For any/all y'all on broadband services, I suggest getting ahold of the >privacy policy and reading the whole damn thing. I was amazed to see >that attbi tracks times and websites of internet browsing as well as >television viewing habits. However the information they collect is not identified with your name or e-mail address. Essentially there motives are no more sinister than wanting to market things to you or sell your name to someone else who wants to market to you. FYI you can opt out of solicitation by phone, e-mail, or snail mail on same page as the privacy policy. >Further, they combine this info with other >personally identifiable information that they gather and that is >"obtained from third parties for the purpose of creating an enhanced >personal database to use in marketing and other activities." I think your interpretation is wrong. Directly from the above linked web site: "AT&T will not use information about your activities on the Internet together with any information that identifies you without your consent." Seems to contradict what you are saying. The one exception is billing information, but come on, they have to know where to mail your bill, etc. >Also, they >make available information, including email (and attachments) to the >FBI and Copyright Holders when requested/required. They maintain >records for 10 years. More and more and more. Please read your >agreements! I found no reference to saving web, e-mail, or attachment information for any specific period of time on the policy linked to above. Where did you get this information? Please post the link so other AT&T customers can be informed. Seems like it would be a big pain in the ass for AT&T to collect such information and store it for that long. Even if you assume that the average user information for a day could be stored in a 100k text file (we are talking about e-mails and attachments), you would still need 10 years*365 days in a year*(Number of Customers)*100k or 365MEG per customer. And what about people like me who subscribe to several e-mail lists? It would require a lot of space to archive all of the e-mail that I get/send. How many customers do you suppose that AT&T has? Seems like a lot of resources and for what return? AT&T is not going to devote resources to this unless they are: 1. Required to by Law 2. Covering their ass in some way But you never know. I just couldn't find any information on length of time information is kept or regarding the FBI or copyright holders on the policy linked to above. Jeremy, please post where this information came from! BTW, I do not have cable television so I am just accessing the internet through AT&T. Possibly the differences are in the online and cable television privacy agreements. Tim B Offer: Upload of Keller Williams 5/12/01 (Pie Party) http://db.etree.org/shninfo_detail.php?shnid=5222 to one lucky server who is the first to send me upload info. I am behind an AT&T cable modem so my upload will be around 14K/s. _______________________________________________ etree.org etree mailing list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://mail.etree.org/mailman/listinfo/etree Need help? Ask <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
