AT&T Claims It Wants Meaningful Privacy Rules...After Just Lobbying To Kill Meaningful Privacy Rules
from the watch-what-I-do,-not-what-I-say dept
If you hadn't noticed, the telecom industry has been on a tear lately, completely dismantling most government oversight of its natural monopolies. From killing net neutrality to gutting FCC and state authority to rein in ISP bad behavior, companies like AT&T dream of a future where neither competiton nor even modest regulatory oversight prevent it from its god-given mission to rip off and otherwise overcharge the company's largely captive customer bases.
At the same time, AT&T is now part of a coordinated effort between the telecom sector and the Trump administration to saddle Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Google with additional regulation while demonizing them as out of control monsters. Why? As AT&T and Comcast push deeper into the online ad industry, they're looking for any advantage they can get against entrenched search and social media giants. And, given their political power, domination of the broadband last mile, and the government's apathy to both problems, those advantages run deep.
At the heart of this little stage play sits our national conversation about what new privacy laws might look like. Last week, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing consumer advocates weren't even invited to. Instead, companies with utterly terrible track records of privacy abuses were given starring roles in dictating just what said privacy legislation should look like. That included Facebook but also AT&T, which for weeks has been quick to claim on multiple fronts that it just really, really, loves the idea of comprehensive privacy protections for consumers:
AT&T has long supported comprehensive federal privacy legislation to protect consumers and give businesses clear and consistent guidelines on the collection and use of consumer data... AT&T wants to be a constructive voice in finding a real and durable solution.
Which is weird, because "constructive" isn't really the best word to explain AT&T's lobbying tactics on the privacy front lately. The company was a major player in efforts last year to obliterate modest FCC privacy guidelines for broadband providers before they could even take effect. Those rules largely just mandated that ISPs be transparent about what data is collected and who it's being sold to, while requiring opt in consent for particularly sensitive consumer data like your financial background. AT&T has played a pretty major role in lying to scuttle state-level protections as well.
Yet here's AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, again this week proclaiming that his company is breathlessly dedicated to real privacy protections, while lamenting the fact that states are now trying to fill the void in the wake of federal apathy on this subject:
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson on Tuesday made a pitch for Congress to "step up" and create "rules of the road" on consumer privacy that would apply to all companies across the country.
"We think one ranger. There ought to be one regulator for everybody," the exec said at The Atlantic Festival in Washington. Without that, Stephenson said states like California will step into the breach and create their own rules.
Speaking of the media, tech and communications industries, he said, "To handcuff those sectors with 50 different rules of the road across 50 different states and different regulators is a disaster for an uncertain business model."
That takes some serious stones. Again, AT&T just got done obliterating meaningful FCC privacy rules that didprecisely what Stephenson claims he was looking for, something you'd think any press outlet writing about this would mention. Like the ISP assault on net neutrality, the attack on the FCC's privacy rules (and overall authority) created an accountability vacuum states then rushed to fill. A bunch of fractured, state-level protections isn't ideal, but it was a problem directly caused by AT&T's own lobbying. That really shouldn't be forgotten.
It's understood that people have differing opinions on what real privacy rules should look like and whether we need them at all. But whatever your position, it shouldn't be hard to see that companies like AT&T are the very last folks we want having too much input on what these rules should look like. From actively modifying user packets to covertly track them around the internet to trying to charge consumers more money to protect their privacy, AT&T's the poster child for not really giving a damn about consumer privacy. And when efforts to pass even modest rules do arrive, AT&T lobbyists work to kill them.
That's because none of the giant companies being tasked with defining our potential looming privacy law (be it Facebook or AT&T) want a law that actually accomplishes much of anything aside from "putting the debate to bed" so they can get back to tracking you around the internet without much transparency or meaningful consent. Real rules would empower, inform, and educate consumers, who'd then opt out of huge swaths of data monetization efforts, costing ad-driven companies billions. They like to talk a lot about "compromise" and "building consensus," but these companies really only want one thing: a federal privacy law that looks good on paper, but has so many loopholes to be largely useless, outside of the goal of pre-empting any tougher, state-level privacy efforts.
In AT&T's case, if those laws happen to saddle Silicon Valley ad competitors with additional burdens AT&T and its subsidiary DirecTV may not have to face (after having just effectively convinced the FCC to blow itself up from within), so much the better.
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Filed Under: congress, federal rules, privacy
Companies: at&t
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'If we didn't write them, they don't count.'
Again, AT&T just got done obliterating meaningful FCC privacy rules that did precisely what Stephenson claims he was looking for, something you'd think any press outlet writing about this would mention.
And yet, they didn't, and reading the article it might as well have been a full on PR fluff piece written by AT&T, as it was basically just statements made by him.
It's easy to lie when you know you won't get called out on it, and with sterling 'reporting' like that it's hardly a wonder he'd make statements like that without any worry.
The likes of AT&T want privacy rules only to the extent that they are allowed to write them. Anything less will be treated as 'unfair' and 'burdensome', with calls to kill them and replace them with proper rules that allow the kind of 'innovation' AT&T and company are well known for: getting the most money for the least amount of work on their part.
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The hole in that logic should be obvious.
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AT&T
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Re: AT&T
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Maybe they just want the links to all the juicy sites!
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I am breathlessly waiting to read articles penned by you that never use the word "breathless". Reading such a masterful work would leave me absolutely breathless.
Breathlessly yours,
AC
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ALL corporations should be broken up when get TOO BIG.
In the early 20th century TOO BIG was sufficient reason, and the practice pretty well, eventually applied to ATT -- after a long but probably necessary period in which telephones became available even in rural areas of the US. How else would you prevent "natural" monopoly from using the advantages and spreading to take over ALL? -- And note that since anti-trust has lapsed in the US, ATT, the very model of breaking up giants, has re-formed like a horror-movie monster!
But of course, that notion leads directly to GOOGLE / Facebook, and all the other corporate giants that Techdirt supports. -- So this is just the usual focused but tepid attack. No call for action, just whining.
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Re:member when you promised to leave?
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Re: ALL corporations should be broken up when get TOO BIG.
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Troll is TOO BIG for his breeches
Too big as in a monopoly? Because that was the definition used back then. It had to be a monopoly or close enough to it that it was able to use that power to harm competitors and consumers. The nebulous "too big" qualification was just that, too nebulous to be used.
I'll agree that ATT has once again become a monopoly and action should probably be taken on that, but Google and Facebook aren't anywhere close to be being a monopoly. They have multiples of competitors and they aren't stopping anyone from using a competitor, nor are they making it harder for competitors to enter the market. Anyone can build their own platform and be competing with them within a few days time using free open source tools and resources.
Just because they do it better than anyone else and thus everyone chooses to use them over other services, doesn't mean they are "too big" or in need of breaking up. And it definitely doesn't make them a monopoly.
By that definition and logic then, we should probably break up Subway, Burger King, McDonald's, and Hardee's. They're obviously TOO BIG since hardly anyone eats fast food anywhere else anymore. Nevermind that they all compete with each other and there are plenty of other competitors. They are TOO BIG!
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Re: Troll is TOO BIG for his breeches
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Re: ALL corporations should be broken up when get TOO BIG.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling
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