AT&T, Comcast and Verizon strike out against internet privacy backlash

Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are promising not to sell users’ browser history in the wake of successful congressional vote last week to get rid of regulations that protected users’ privacy online.

The major internet service providers made announcements that essentially assured users that their browser histories were safe with them.

On Friday, Comcast published a lengthy statement that read, in part:

There has been a lot of misleading talk about how the congressional action this week to overturn the regulatory overreach of the prior FCC will now permit us to sell sensitive customer data without customers’ knowledge or consent. This is just not true. In fact, we have committed not to share our customers’ sensitive information (such as banking, children’s, and health information), unless we first obtain their affirmative, opt-in consent.

Our privacy commitments to our customers go even beyond this protection of sensitive information that has dominated the dialogue this week. If a customer does not want us to use other, non-sensitive data to send them targeted ads, we offer them the ability to opt out of receiving such targeted ads.

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Verizon took a similar approach with its blog post, which read, in part:

Let’s set the record straight. Verizon does not sell the personal web browsing history of our customers. We don’t do it and that’s the bottom line.

Verizon is fully committed to the privacy of our customers. We value the trust our customers have in us so protecting the privacy of customer information is a core priority for us. Verizon’s privacy policy clearly lays out what we do and don’t do as well as the choices customers can make.

We have two programs that use web browsing data — and neither of these programs involves selling customers’ personal web browsing history. Customers have a choice about participating in both programs. The Verizon Selects advertising program makes marketing to customers more personalized and useful — using de-identified information to determine which customers fit into groups that advertisers are trying to reach. The other program provides aggregate insights that might be useful for advertisers and other businesses.

In addition, existing laws and commitments we have made to our customers remain in place and serve to protect consumers. You can expect that we will continue operating as we currently do — providing customers with clear and complete information to help them decide what’s best for them.

AT&T took a different route and referred customers to its existing privacy policy, which assures customers that it will not sell personal data to other entities for any purpose.

AT&T’s privacy protections are the same today as they were five months ago when the FCC rules were adopted. We had the same protections in place the day before the Congressional resolution was passed, and we will have the same protections the day after President Trump signs the CRA into law. The Congressional action had zero effect on the privacy protections afforded to consumers.

It is also flatly untrue that the Congressional action eliminated all legal protections governing use of consumer information. For example, AT&T and other ISPs’ actions continue to be governed by Section 222 of the Communications Act just as they were for the nearly two years that passed between reclassification of internet access as a Title II service and the passage of new rules last fall. Former FCC Chairman Wheeler wasn’t shouting then that consumers’ privacy was at risk because we had no rules. The statute itself protected consumers. And it will continue to do so until the misguided Title II reclassification decision is rescinded, at which time the FTC will resume regulating consumer broadband privacy, just as it has done since the internet was created decades ago.

The Trump administration has made deregulation across industries a major initiative. If more consumer-protecting regulations get repealed, expect to see more companies standing up like Comcast and AT&T to say that they will continue to protect consumers’ privacy and other rights.

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