7 ms·

Maybe I just don't pay enough attention to this, but this is the first place where I've read that Google and other large companies are being paid for monitoring

by beloch 13y ago

Maybe I just don't pay enough attention to this, but this is the first place where I've read that Google and other large companies are being paid for monitoring their customers. This is making my sleaze-o-meter spike. What are the rates like? Is it per user? Per message? Per kilobyte? It certainly couldn't be per arrest... Sometimes it seems like the rabbit hole just keeps going deeper, but then you realize it's a damned sewer!

aray 13y ago
They don't offer anything up with that last point ("bigco's selling data"). As far as I can tell it was pulled from thin air. They're understandably upset -- a lot of us are -- but I don't think that quite justifies making unbased accusations like that (and if it has basis I'd love to hear more).
- lawnchair_larry 13y ago
  No, this is not new information. Companies do get paid, a lot, to facilitate this. This was known before the leaks, but leaks confirmed it. Now there are articles all over if you search. Example: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57593273/verizon-at-t-get-most-bucks-from-feds-for-wiretaps/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57593273/verizon-at-t-ge... "In its letter to Markey, AT&T estimated that it collected $24 million in government reimbursements between 2007 and 2011. Verizon, which had the highest fees but says it doesn't charge in every case, reported a similar amount, collecting between $3 million and $5 million a year during the same period." I'm not sure how I feel about that (making the companies pay for it doesn't seem fair either), but it certainly doesn't leave us with incentives in the right places.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    $24 million over a year period paid to AT&T doesn't fit my definition of 'get paid a lot.' AT&T had profits of (approximately) $7 billion on revenue of $31 B in 2012. So these reimbursements amount to something like 0.015% of revenue, or 0.1% of profits. For a firm that size, there are much greater incentives to lobby for favorable rules on employee health benefits, spectrum allocation, or consumer relations. I mean, over that time period the CEO of AT&T earned about $100 m, so in theory he could afford to take the hit for all that fee revenue personally and still make more money in a year than most people see in a lifetime. I'm not expressing support for the NSA's activity here, I think this sort of data vacuuming is quite dangerous. But viewed in the context of actual corporate revenues, I don't think it's realistic to say the government is bribing big business here, because the amount they're paying is trivial, and thus largely reflective of the change in the actual operating cost of the corporate data centers.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      First line should say 'over a 5 year period.' oops.
  - jevinskie 13y ago
    I recall cricket was the cheapest. Can I just get a line item on my phone bill for NSA surveillance instead of paying it through my taxes? :)
superuser2 13y ago
When you receive paper from the government under FOIA, you are required to pay for the photocopies. Responding to your FOIA request isn't a mission directive, so it doesn't deserve budget money. It's just something the government has to do. You are requiring the government to use resources (toner, paper, time) so you have to pay for them. Surveillance by government is the same way. Police and three-letter agencies are using engineer time, bandwidth, and potentially rack space of service providers complying with warrants. They compensate providers for those resources. Similarly, if the police kick down an apartment door, they're supposed to compensate the landlord for the cost of a new door. If your municipal police department wanted to wiretap your cell phone, they would have to pay Verizon/AT&T/whatever a monthly fee just like you do.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  Your statements are all valid, but it still doesn't detract from the parent's statement that [sic] something about companies being paid to spy on users is just plain wrong.
  - kbar13 13y ago
    your statement is illogical. Parent broke down why the companies ask for compensation, and it's reasonable. Why should the government get to take up resources for free?
    - arunkd13 13y ago
      The problem I see is, all this are asked to be kept secret. How much money the Government gives the Telcos, ISPs and websites like Google, Facebook etc. for monitoring people and how much these people charge etc. are being kept secret. You create a ghost. Create fear of the ghost. Tell people that only you can protect them from the ghost. But you don't tell them how they plan to protect them from the ghost, nor are you willing to disclose how much you spend to protect people from this ghost.
dkarl 13y ago
It makes sense to ask the government to cover your costs when you're doing something on a court order, and by god you aren't going to lowball it. On the other hand, it should hurt to participate in something like this, and a corporation of any significant size doesn't have a conscience to pain it (no matter what the feelings of the people animating it.) If the government reimburses companies for a generous estimate of the costs, they won't have to worry about the industry lobbying against this kind of coerced cooperation in domestic surveillance.
Spooky23 13y ago
This is a really common arrangement when the costs involved are non-trivial. Even in civil litigation, complex e-discovery often involves cost recovery for searching through and locating records. I had a similar experience related to a more typical criminal investigation and an individual computer. There was a warrant signed by a federal magistrate, our counsel reviewed it, and they were professional and respectful of our operational concerns. The problem here is the secret court, secret warrant, etc. the rest is fine with me, the police should be able to investigate crime with appropriate oversight.
prostoalex 13y ago
http://gizmodo.com/5898964/this-is-how-much-carriers-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps http://gizmodo.com/5898964/this-is-how-much-carriers-charge-...
harichinnan 13y ago
What is the alternative. Charge zero dollars irrespective of the amount of data requested?
ynniv 13y ago
Cox Communications charges $2,500 to fulfill a pen register/trap-and-trace order for 60 days, and $2,000 for each additional 60-day-interval. It charges $3,500 for the first 30 days of a wiretap, and $2,500 for each additional 30 days. Thirty days worth of a customer’s call detail records costs $40. Comcast’s pricing list, which was already leaked to the internet in 2007, indicated that it charges at least $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 per month thereafter. [ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/wiretap-prices/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/wiretap-prices/ ]
sev 13y ago
It would be really interesting if this revenue was Google's 2nd best performing business after Ads.

by beloch 13y ago

aray 13y ago

They don't offer anything up with that last point ("bigco's selling data"). As far as I can tell it was pulled from thin air. They're understandably upset -- a lot of us are -- but I don't think that quite justifies making unbased accusations like that (and if it has basis I'd love to hear more).

lawnchair_larry 13y ago
No, this is not new information. Companies do get paid, a lot, to facilitate this. This was known before the leaks, but leaks confirmed it. Now there are articles all over if you search. Example: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57593273/verizon-at-t-get-most-bucks-from-feds-for-wiretaps/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57593273/verizon-at-t-ge... "In its letter to Markey, AT&T estimated that it collected $24 million in government reimbursements between 2007 and 2011. Verizon, which had the highest fees but says it doesn't charge in every case, reported a similar amount, collecting between $3 million and $5 million a year during the same period." I'm not sure how I feel about that (making the companies pay for it doesn't seem fair either), but it certainly doesn't leave us with incentives in the right places.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  $24 million over a year period paid to AT&T doesn't fit my definition of 'get paid a lot.' AT&T had profits of (approximately) $7 billion on revenue of $31 B in 2012. So these reimbursements amount to something like 0.015% of revenue, or 0.1% of profits. For a firm that size, there are much greater incentives to lobby for favorable rules on employee health benefits, spectrum allocation, or consumer relations. I mean, over that time period the CEO of AT&T earned about $100 m, so in theory he could afford to take the hit for all that fee revenue personally and still make more money in a year than most people see in a lifetime. I'm not expressing support for the NSA's activity here, I think this sort of data vacuuming is quite dangerous. But viewed in the context of actual corporate revenues, I don't think it's realistic to say the government is bribing big business here, because the amount they're paying is trivial, and thus largely reflective of the change in the actual operating cost of the corporate data centers.
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    First line should say 'over a 5 year period.' oops.
- jevinskie 13y ago
  I recall cricket was the cheapest. Can I just get a line item on my phone bill for NSA surveillance instead of paying it through my taxes? :)

superuser2 13y ago

When you receive paper from the government under FOIA, you are required to pay for the photocopies. Responding to your FOIA request isn't a mission directive, so it doesn't deserve budget money. It's just something the government has to do. You are requiring the government to use resources (toner, paper, time) so you have to pay for them. Surveillance by government is the same way. Police and three-letter agencies are using engineer time, bandwidth, and potentially rack space of service providers complying with warrants. They compensate providers for those resources. Similarly, if the police kick down an apartment door, they're supposed to compensate the landlord for the cost of a new door. If your municipal police department wanted to wiretap your cell phone, they would have to pay Verizon/AT&T/whatever a monthly fee just like you do.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
GigabyteCoin 13y ago
Your statements are all valid, but it still doesn't detract from the parent's statement that [sic] something about companies being paid to spy on users is just plain wrong.
- kbar13 13y ago
  your statement is illogical. Parent broke down why the companies ask for compensation, and it's reasonable. Why should the government get to take up resources for free?
  - arunkd13 13y ago
    The problem I see is, all this are asked to be kept secret. How much money the Government gives the Telcos, ISPs and websites like Google, Facebook etc. for monitoring people and how much these people charge etc. are being kept secret. You create a ghost. Create fear of the ghost. Tell people that only you can protect them from the ghost. But you don't tell them how they plan to protect them from the ghost, nor are you willing to disclose how much you spend to protect people from this ghost.

dkarl 13y ago

It makes sense to ask the government to cover your costs when you're doing something on a court order, and by god you aren't going to lowball it. On the other hand, it should hurt to participate in something like this, and a corporation of any significant size doesn't have a conscience to pain it (no matter what the feelings of the people animating it.) If the government reimburses companies for a generous estimate of the costs, they won't have to worry about the industry lobbying against this kind of coerced cooperation in domestic surveillance.

Spooky23 13y ago

This is a really common arrangement when the costs involved are non-trivial. Even in civil litigation, complex e-discovery often involves cost recovery for searching through and locating records. I had a similar experience related to a more typical criminal investigation and an individual computer. There was a warrant signed by a federal magistrate, our counsel reviewed it, and they were professional and respectful of our operational concerns. The problem here is the secret court, secret warrant, etc. the rest is fine with me, the police should be able to investigate crime with appropriate oversight.

prostoalex 13y ago

http://gizmodo.com/5898964/this-is-how-much-carriers-charge-for-cellphone-wiretaps http://gizmodo.com/5898964/this-is-how-much-carriers-charge-...

harichinnan 13y ago

What is the alternative. Charge zero dollars irrespective of the amount of data requested?

ynniv 13y ago

Cox Communications charges $2,500 to fulfill a pen register/trap-and-trace order for 60 days, and $2,000 for each additional 60-day-interval. It charges $3,500 for the first 30 days of a wiretap, and $2,500 for each additional 30 days. Thirty days worth of a customer’s call detail records costs $40. Comcast’s pricing list, which was already leaked to the internet in 2007, indicated that it charges at least $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 per month thereafter. [ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/wiretap-prices/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/wiretap-prices/ ]

sev 13y ago

It would be really interesting if this revenue was Google's 2nd best performing business after Ads.