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I posted a story last week about AT&T announcing that they will be partnering with the movie and music industry associations to hand over customers who use AT&T as their broadband provider who have been identified as downloading illegal or copyrighted movies or music.
In simple words, AT&T will be spying on their customers and if they catch one of their them downloading something copyrighted, they will hand your name over to a group of lawyers interested in tarring and feathering you.
Now to the surprise of both myself as well as one of my faithful readers Adam who was my lone commenter, this post was just not very popular by Hipster readers and did not deliver my usual amount of comments. I was kind of surprised by this, so I thought I would give this another try because I think this is monumental and incredibly disturbing news.
Let’s start here - Are you one of the millions of people who are getting ready to run out and buy Apple’s new iPhone? If so, do you realize that you will be signing a contract with the same company (AT&T) who has announced that they will be spying on their OWN customers? Before everyone jumps up and down on me, I know their announcement referred to customers presently paying AT&T for their broadband service, but if a company is so easily willing to sell out their customers in one area, how long will it take them do the same in their wireless unit?
The iPhone is an MP3 player, I don’t think it is out of the realm of possibilities that someone is going to upload songs to their iPhone that they might have downloaded without paying for. What is stopping AT&T from scanning each one of their customers iPhone’s for illegal music? That is exactly what they will be doing for their broadband customers!?!?
Now I do not want to come across as some doomsday guy here who is presently digging a bunker in his basement. To be honest, I don’t even have a basement and I hate digging. 
BUT, this is an incredibly slippery slope that AT&T is on and the only thing that is going to change their attitudes and minds is if their revenues will suffer because of this.
I think this is an incredible opportunity to let AT&T know or even send an email to Steve Jobs himself and tell both AT&T and Steve Jobs that if AT&T continues to proceed with this Big Brother routine of there’s, YOU, the consumer are not going to buy the iPhone as you were planning to do.
I would like to close with several points that Adam brought up in his comment from my original post that I think everyone needs to think about before you head out to your local AT&T store to buy an iPhone.
I mean, this isn’t even the government forcing AT&T to give up our private information. This is one private organization giving up our private information to another private organization so they can collect fines.
I wonder if AT&T gets a cut of the action?
Shouldn’t this be illegal?
Where are the pending lawsuits, where is the supreme court on this?
WOW. I was thinking of getting an Iphone some time next year, but now, forget it. It’s not that I want to pirate music or video. I don’t, I can afford to pay for my entertainment. This is madness.
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Technorati Tags: AT&T, Apple, iPhone, MP3 player, Steve Jobs
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I wouldn’t sign up for AT&T for the exact reason that you mentioned.
But it’s not like Verizon, Alltel and the rest won’t be selling it soon. It’s just a matter of being patient until a different carrier offers iPhone.
Cord,
I see where you’re going with this and it is a little unsettling to know that someone is ‘watching’ you. But it really doesn’t seem like a problem to me if you’re not doing anything illegal. How much would this decision really affect you if you’re purchasing movies (and music) like we all should?
Matt - My issue has nothing to do with allowing people to steal copyrighted music or movies. My issue has to do with personal privacy and holding companies accountable for their actions. A government or a company cannot decide that they are going to invade everyone’s privacy in the hopes of finding a small percentage of users who are breaking the law. Our country was founded on the exact opposite premise and what AT&T is doing is absolutely out of line.
Thanks for the comment Matt..
Jeremy - You are probably right, but I think if AT&T gets a bunch of bad press out of this and we can inflict some pain on AT&T for this decision, companies might be more hesitant to do something like this.
I don’t think this is going to stop anything. But I have been very surprised that news like this has not gotten more visibility in the blogosphere as well as elsewhere and I am just trying to raise that visibility level. Thanks Jeremy
Hey Cord, I’m not an iPod user, nor likely to switch to an iPhone any time soon. I just haven’t gotten into the whole “i” community experience. I do agree with you that the whole situation smacks of Big Brother elements. While I will avoid actively avoid buying an iPhone now that I know this, at the same time, I find that I’m not motivated to take additional action on it beyond avoiding the product. I suppose if I was invested in the situation financially or otherwise, I’d be more agitated about it.
“Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” Benjamin Franklin
Does anyone that doesn’t have an issue with this understand what that statement means.
The right to privacy is one of the constitutional liberties bestowed upon us by our fore fathers when they created this country. Benjamin Franklin should be rolling over in his grave.
Get educated people. Do you have any idea what is being taken from you?
Privacy as defined in wikipedia - “It is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy#Privacy_laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union
Interesting post. However, I believe that this fits right into the capitalist POV. With the advent of ‘Big Brother’ types of arrangements there will inevitably be reason to advertise otherwise.
Healthy capitalism will bring about competition that would benefit and profit from doing just the opposite.
I hope I’m right
Best regards,
Heath
Paul - I hear what you are saying, but I guess my feeling is that when a company is willing to give up their customers privacy rights so easily, it is something that we should all be concerned with.
Adam - Preach on my brother!! Why does it seem like you and I are the only ones who are getting this?
Heath - I agree with you that iof one company screws up, it gives an opportunity to another company. Unfortunately, the iPhone is a monopoly. It is being supported by only one wireless carrier and that is AT&T, so we as consumers do not have any options. Our only option is to force AT&T to stop doing this or get Apple to choose another carrier. Though again, this is not a capitalism issue. This is a true privacy and civil rights issue and I don’t understand why more people do not get that.
Thanks for your comments.
Ben Franklin was right about sacrificing liberty.
It just amazes me that there is not more news on this AT&T domestic spying thing, and very little comment from individuals about their privacy being eroded. It is not hard to connect the dots…and where this is going with companies like AT&T.
We use Qwest for our wirless, and they were the only company who did not sell out their customers to the NSA and the AG.
How can anyone with some intelligence buy an iPhone knowing what AT&T is involved in.
The real question here is, as an individual, what can one do about it, other than not being a patron of these particular companies products and services.
Our rights have already been abused, and if that is not enough to start a revolution in this country, then what will it take? When AT&T and companies like them become the government? They are already sleeping with the government!
Wake up everybody!
Thanks for all the comments.
I am very much an advocate of privacy, and of both governments and companies… well, frankly, minding their own business. I also strongly dislike AT&T as a company, for more reasons than I can conceivably fit here. However, I would like to make two points concerning references to constitutionality and civil rights.
First of all, while privacy is nice, and should be generally respected, the constitution grants no right to privacy, beyond protection from unwarranted searches and siezures. This would mean that copyright violators (or anyone else) could not be prosecuted unless they signed a contract for broadband service after the announcement, and the publicity of this data was made clear in the terms of the contract. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they won’t be prosecuted (in violation of the constitution) anyway.
Secondly, while the constitution says that this information can’t be collected by the government, or used to prosecute, it does not prevent a company from making user data available to other companies. Various state or federal laws might, but these are completely separate from the constitution.
As far as capitalism goes… well, one can only hope that some clever hacker will enable the iPhone to be used on other networks soon. Not that I care; the iPhone, like all Apple products, tries so hard to be intuitive that it is frustrating–worst of all is iTunes. I much prefer my BlackBerry.
If you are lamenting AT&T’s exclusivity with thi iPhone, consider a Curve, Pearl, or Pocket PC from T-Mobile.
Anybody knows about planning to sell iPhones in Russia? If im not mistaken, it is not possible to buy “white” iPhone here. Its possible to buy illegal now(((