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> Understanding the Products, Services and offers that you, and other AT&T customers with whom you call and text and interact, might enjoy the most. We do not u

> Understanding the Products, Services and offers that you, and other AT&T customers with whom you call and text and interact, might enjoy the most. We do not use the content of your texts, emails or calls for marketing or advertising. > The keyword here is content. They don't use the content of the messages and calls, just the metadata (numbers that communicated, duration, etc). That information alone could be very revealing though. https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/j9hsjz/att_is_selling_your_phone_calls_and_text_messages/g8k92n3 https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/j9hsjz/att_is_sell...

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
$10 says we'll find out in a few years that the content was included... and this was "just the tip" strategy.
- jchw 6y ago
  IANAL but that seems like something that may genuinely be a legal liability, even hating AT&T I feel a bit skeptical.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    Tell you what, you can pay me your $10 out of the settlement check we'll all be getting over this.
    - mikestew 6y ago
      What, you expect jchw to just come up with the other $7 out of their own pocket?
    - cobookman 6y ago
      I'm still waiting for my equifax settlement.
  - jm4 6y ago
    Look to what they do for the government now to get an idea of what they will monetize 10 years from now. Most of the crowd here is probably too young to remember when room 641A was exposed. Several years later, we had Snowden reveal even more with the prism program and bulk collection of metadata. Today, we're here discussing ATT's monetization of the metadata they began collecting and analyzing for the government. Post-9/11, the government was all about behavioral targeting to identify terrorists. Every other day, we're on here talking about Google and Facebook doing it for money. What is the government contracting for today? That's the big tech business of tomorrow.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  ebay now lets you request all of the data they have on you (unsure if that means sold or not). I've requested a ton, and you can too: https://www.sarweb.ebay.com/sar https://www.sarweb.ebay.com/sar
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  And the same 'mea culpa' that Google gave when it was revealed that yes, they were in fact grabbing your network traffic as well when they drove their street view car past your house. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-admits-storing-private-data https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-ad...
ballenf 6y ago
If it's metadata plus content of your contacts' web searches, etc., then the distinction becomes meaningless. If you have a phone call with a friend about widgets and then they google for it just after the call, a wise marketer might think they should show you some ads for the same thing just in case. Just pray your friend doesn't google something illegal or distasteful just after they get off the phone with you.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  "Meaningless" seems to overstate your case.
  - ballenf 6y ago
    Yes, it was hyperbole. My point was that metadata combined with other data becomes a super powerful tool. You might guard your own privacy 100% but have a conversation with someone who doesn't. If you share interests, then your privacy op sec is now compromised in a way completely out of your hands.
jlgaddis 6y ago
You can learn so very much about a person and build a highly accurate and surprisingly detailed "profile" of them from just the "metadata" of their calls and text messages [0]. They almost certainly already know where you live and whom you live with, where you work, where you shop for groceries and hang on, where you travel to on vacation, and so on. For many years now, they've been capturing this "metadata" (at minimum) anyways -- to hand over to the U.S. Government on a daily basis -- so we really shouldn't be surprised that they decided to take advantage of that and use this information in any way that they can. Personally, for quite a while now, my "default" has been to automatically assume that pretty much ANY data I provide to any company WILL be kept -- forever -- and used in absolutely any way whatsoever they they desire and/or for any purpose, including "sharing" it with any other company to be used in any way and for any purpose (and even if they aren't right now, that can change at any time). -- As an aside, Gen. Hayden (former DIRCIA/DIRNSA) testified that, "We kill people based on metadata". -- [0]: Additionally, any "missing pieces" of their profile of you can probably be "filled in", thanks to their access to your (Internet) data that also travels across their network. Of course, I'm sure they would NEVER do anything like that -- nor anything they might ever need "retroactive immunity" for!

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago

$10 says we'll find out in a few years that the content was included... and this was "just the tip" strategy.

jchw 6y ago
IANAL but that seems like something that may genuinely be a legal liability, even hating AT&T I feel a bit skeptical.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  Tell you what, you can pay me your $10 out of the settlement check we'll all be getting over this.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    What, you expect jchw to just come up with the other $7 out of their own pocket?
  - cobookman 6y ago
    I'm still waiting for my equifax settlement.
- jm4 6y ago
  Look to what they do for the government now to get an idea of what they will monetize 10 years from now. Most of the crowd here is probably too young to remember when room 641A was exposed. Several years later, we had Snowden reveal even more with the prism program and bulk collection of metadata. Today, we're here discussing ATT's monetization of the metadata they began collecting and analyzing for the government. Post-9/11, the government was all about behavioral targeting to identify terrorists. Every other day, we're on here talking about Google and Facebook doing it for money. What is the government contracting for today? That's the big tech business of tomorrow.
Scoundreller 6y ago
ebay now lets you request all of the data they have on you (unsure if that means sold or not). I've requested a ton, and you can too: https://www.sarweb.ebay.com/sar https://www.sarweb.ebay.com/sar
ChuckMcM 6y ago
And the same 'mea culpa' that Google gave when it was revealed that yes, they were in fact grabbing your network traffic as well when they drove their street view car past your house. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-admits-storing-private-data https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/may/15/google-ad...

ballenf 6y ago

If it's metadata plus content of your contacts' web searches, etc., then the distinction becomes meaningless. If you have a phone call with a friend about widgets and then they google for it just after the call, a wise marketer might think they should show you some ads for the same thing just in case. Just pray your friend doesn't google something illegal or distasteful just after they get off the phone with you.

whimsicalism 6y ago
"Meaningless" seems to overstate your case.
- ballenf 6y ago
  Yes, it was hyperbole. My point was that metadata combined with other data becomes a super powerful tool. You might guard your own privacy 100% but have a conversation with someone who doesn't. If you share interests, then your privacy op sec is now compromised in a way completely out of your hands.

jlgaddis 6y ago

You can learn so very much about a person and build a highly accurate and surprisingly detailed "profile" of them from just the "metadata" of their calls and text messages [0]. They almost certainly already know where you live and whom you live with, where you work, where you shop for groceries and hang on, where you travel to on vacation, and so on. For many years now, they've been capturing this "metadata" (at minimum) anyways -- to hand over to the U.S. Government on a daily basis -- so we really shouldn't be surprised that they decided to take advantage of that and use this information in any way that they can. Personally, for quite a while now, my "default" has been to automatically assume that pretty much ANY data I provide to any company WILL be kept -- forever -- and used in absolutely any way whatsoever they they desire and/or for any purpose, including "sharing" it with any other company to be used in any way and for any purpose (and even if they aren't right now, that can change at any time). -- As an aside, Gen. Hayden (former DIRCIA/DIRNSA) testified that, "We kill people based on metadata". -- [0]: Additionally, any "missing pieces" of their profile of you can probably be "filled in", thanks to their access to your (Internet) data that also travels across their network. Of course, I'm sure they would NEVER do anything like that -- nor anything they might ever need "retroactive immunity" for!