For an extra $29 a month, Kansas City customers of AT&T new fiber-based, high-speed internet service can keep Big Brother from snooping on their browsing:
“When you select AT&T Internet Preferences, we can offer you our best pricing best pricing on GigaPower because you let us use your individual Web browsing information, like the search terms you enter and the web pages you visit, to tailor ads and offers to your interests.”
For consumers, there’s a lot to think about on both sides of the bargain. On one hand, at nearly $350 a year, the privacy option sure isn’t cheap.
But on the other hand, the discount requires consumers to give up a lot of data. Unlike with other ISPs, customers can’t thwart AT&T ‘s data collection through cookie settings or private browsing since the company is drawing the data right from their fiber connection. (To read more about the prospect of deep packet inspection and other technical aspects, see my colleague Stacey Higginbotham’s post from 2013).
There’s also the question of whether such a bargain should even exist. Is it really fair for AT&T to force consumers to make a deal-with-the-data-devil in the first place?
I’ll take this free market solution to privacy over the FCC’s 322 pages of regulations and taxes any day of the week.
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