Having stipulated that privacy has a value now we're just talking price.
She: What kind of woman do you think I am?
He: We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.
-attributed to: George Bernard Shaw, Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, Mark Twain, W.C. Fields, Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells, Woodrow Wilson...
From techdirt:
from the stop-trying-to-help dept
A few years back, we noted how AT&T had begun charging broadband users a significant premium if they wanted to opt out of the company's Internet Essentials
advertising program. Under that program, AT&T uses deep packet
inspection to track consumer browsing behavior around the Internet --
down to the second. By default, AT&T users are opted in to the
program. If they want to opt out of this data collection, consumers need
to not only navigate a confusing array of options, but they also need
to pay $44 to $62 more per month. AT&T, in typical fashion, has actually claimed this is a "discount."
With the FCC's Title II and net neutrality rules upheld, the agency is now considering new basic broadband privacy protections
primarily focused on two things: ensuring ISPs properly disclose what's
being collected and sold, and ensuring that ISPs provide customers with
clear, working opt-out tools. But the agency is also considering
banning ISPs from turning your privacy into an expensive luxury option.
Needless to say, Comcast isn't too pleased with this decision. In a new filing with the FCC
(pdf) documenting a meeting at the agency, everybody's least liked
cable company argues that stopping them from charging more for privacy
would, amusingly, hurt consumers by making services more expensive:
"We
also urged that the Commission allow business models offering discounts
or other value to consumers in exchange for allowing ISPs to use their
data. As Comcast and others have argued, the FCC has no authority to
prohibit or limit these types of programs. Moreover, such a prohibition
would harm consumers by, among other things, depriving them of
lower-priced offerings, and as FTC Commissioner Ohlhausen points out,
“such a ban may prohibit ad supported broadband services and thereby
eliminate a way to increase broadband adoption."
Yes, that's Comcast actually trying to argue that charging customers more money for privacy is a good thing because it will lower rates and improve broadband adoption. Except as we all know, it's the lack of competition in the broadband space
that sets broadband pricing and adoption. And there's yet to be an ISP
that has seriously embraced the idea of offering a lower-priced service
if consumers agree to have their behavior monetized. All AT&T is
doing is taking an already expensive broadband service and tacking a very steep privacy surcharge on top of it.
In addition to trying to argue that the FCC doesn't have the authority
to police such behavior (not true, it's simply updating existing Title
II privacy rules governing phone network CPNI and applying them to
broadband), Comcast said that making privacy a luxury option is simply a
"bargained-for exchange of information for service":
"A
bargained-for exchange of information for service is a perfectly
acceptable and widely used model throughout the U.S. economy, including
the Internet ecosystem, and is consistent with decades of legal
precedent and policy goals related to consumer protection and privacy."
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