AT&T’s plan to watch your Web browsing—and what you can do about it

Want to opt out? It could cost up to $744 extra per year.

Read the whole story

 

[Myntan]

Sounds like a good time to make a web crawler to run on my server 16/7... With health delays between clicks to pretend it's me...

Then again, since the internet is mostly porn, it probably would get stuck in a porn site link loop...

 

[DrCzcechyl]

AT&T is doing everything in their power for me not to like them. They are succeeding at it too.

 

[coloneldebugger]

Who is going to trust that paying them will actually stop them?

 

[atlcomputech]

“Customers’ personal information is never given to that advertiser.”

- Excuse me, but sending my full contact information and browsing habits to any shady marketer that AT&T might do business with sounds pretty personal to me.

 

[mh4]

What is the cost of a very good VPN service that can still give you a killer speed?

I know, I know, google it, but I don't always know who is credible and I'm asking for some basic info from people who have more experience than I.

 

[GaidinBDJ]

If you get stuck and have to go with AT&T and this package, skip the $30 per month fee and go with a VPN provider. If you buy monthly it's usually less than $10/month and even cheaper if you pay by the year.

I usually plug Private Internet Access as I've been happy with them. It's $40 if you pay by the year ($3.33/month), it supports up to five devices at once, and they don't keep any customer usage records. They also provide choice of exit gateway in a couple different countries.

 

[helel ben shachar]

ARS: I believe it's been mentioned in the past, or maybe I missed it, but an in depth article about VPN providers and the various levels of privacy they offer should be on your short list of projects.

 

[Wickwick]

GaidinBDJ[/url]":3k4vomnf]If you get stuck and have to go with AT&T and this package, skip the $30 per month fee and go with a VPN provider. If you buy monthly it's usually less than $10/month and even cheaper if you pay by the year.

I usually plug Private Internet Access as I've been happy with them. It's $40 if you pay by the year ($3.33/month), it supports up to five devices at once, and they don't keep any customer usage records. They also provide choice of exit gateway in a couple different countries.

Up to a gigabit though? That's the point of buying this high-speed 'Net connection.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Is this related to BT previously using phorm?

 

[cgzero]

On the plus side, this will encourage more people to sign up for a private vpn service. I've been tempted before to avoid youtube bandwidth limiting and whatnot but I'd definitely do it for the privacy in this case.

 

[Wickwick]

During HTTPS browsing are my pages visited also encrypted after the first stop? Even using HTTPS you've still got to navigate to the entrance of the site you want to browse. a VPN wraps all that inside of encryption, of course, but then your VPN knows where you're going. I guess the only way to truly obfuscate your browsing is to use Tor - without scripts. But that breaks so many web pages that I guess there's really no solution.

 

[Zorro]

So this is how net neutrality works?

 

[whisk3rs]

they also come "via e-mail or through direct mail

LOLNO, GTFO!

I suppose the HTTPS Everywhere plugin helps but it won't work everywhere...

 

[mmiller7]

mh4[/url]":2qrgshuf]What is the cost of a very good VPN service that can still give you a killer speed?

I know, I know, google it, but I don't always know who is credible and I'm asking for some basic info from people who have more experience than I.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm not sure you'd find one with gigabit but 100M should be easy to locate. Also, HTTPS everything.

Then again, as long as they really only spam me to the email account, I can just ignore that inbox. And the snail-mail I can throw out, besides they're helping subsidize the US postal service that way.

I'd probably put up with that if the upload was equally good. My issue is I only have one ISP to pick from that provides decent speeds...and I'm paying for 120 down to get 10 up. 10 up is still kinda slow for online backups...I rarely if ever find I'm utilizing more than 50M down.

 

[ajfink]

It would be great if the new "Net Neutrality" rules killed this, but that won't happen.

Also...Tor...?

 

[biffbobfred]

AT&T says it uses “appropriate controls to protect customer information

Nothing gives me so much confidence as vague words from a corporation that's already doing shady stuff. "Appropriate" to their profit margin, not the customer's wishes.

The phrase is "if the product is free, then you're the product". Here, you're paying for Internet, AND you're the product.

Without deep packet inspection and keeping a database of browsers' headers and cookies (privacy issues there) they can not keep history except at a connection level, not individual level. Though this is for the best, I can foresee privacy issues when the browsing patterns of one person affect the ads of other people in the residence. Imagine a kid researching LGBT issues who's not out to the family, then an ad pops up to their folks. Messy.

I used to say "they're still jerks, but at least AT&T is less evil than Comcast". Seems that AT&T is actively trying to prove me wrong.

 

[DarthSlack]

cheapscot[/url]":18lwjomt]$99/month for Gb service is a bargain, so if you don't want to be tracked by *just* your ISP (unlike-every-other-place-on-the-freaking-internet) then don't sign up for the discounted rate.

And just how long will it be until all of the ISPs offer either decent speed with snooping or "affordable" plans that come with dial-up speeds and a 1M cap?

Being forced to trade speed for privacy is absolutely insane and the only reason AT&T can get away with it is the abysmal state of competition in the US ISP market. If there was real competition, this wouldn't fly.

 

[Eddy Current]

"In Dallas, where Google Fiber hasn't arrived, AT&T was charging $120 a month for gigabit service"

That's because electrons cost more in Dallas. /s

 

[Deleted member 192806]

DarthSlack[/url]":1r39j67d]

cheapscot[/url]":1r39j67d]$99/month for Gb service is a bargain, so if you don't want to be tracked by *just* your ISP (unlike-every-other-place-on-the-freaking-internet) then don't sign up for the discounted rate.

And just how long will it be until all of the ISPs offer either decent speed with snooping or "affordable" plans that come with dial-up speeds and a 1M cap?

Being forced to trade speed for privacy is absolutely insane and the only reason AT&T can get away with it is the abysmal state of competition in the US ISP market. If there was real competition, this wouldn't fly.

True, but when all you have is lemons, you make lemonade. A VPN is the lemonade in this case. Maybe AT&T will give up once they see it doesn't work.

 

[Ravant]

To all those asking if Google also already does this:
No. Not in the same way, and they aren't selling your personal information directly to their advertisers. There is a very real apples-to-oranges comparison going on here.

Google takes your information, throws you in an anonymous bucket of about 35,000 other people and sells that whole group of 35,000 people as a "This group will see your ads" package to advertisers. They couldn't really care less about you as an individual, because you as an individual are not profitable enough in Google's eyes to sell to advertisers.

AT&T takes your information and "shares" name, address, phone, e-mail and other personally identifying contact information along with browsing habits and other unique net "fingerprints" directly with third parties.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

Ravant[/url]":1347ka2c]To all those asking if Google also already does this:
No. Not in the same way, and they aren't selling your personal information directly to their advertisers. There is a very real apples-to-oranges comparison going on here.

Google takes your information, throws you in an anonymous bucket of about 35,000 other people and sells that whole group of 35,000 people as a "This group will see your ads" package to advertisers. They couldn't really care less about you as an individual, because you as an individual are not profitable enough in Google's eyes to sell to advertisers.

AT&T takes your information and "shares" name, address, phone, e-mail and other personally identifying contact information along with browsing habits and other unique net "fingerprints" directly with third parties.

What people are asking is, does google fiber do the same monitoring of 100% of their non https traffic? And the simple answer is, NO.

So for those who don't like the whole google/facebook tracking stuff and don't use their accounts, google fiber is still an option.

 

[Boskone]

Wickwick[/url]":1wz90d7b]During HTTPS browsing are my pages visited also encrypted after the first stop? Even using HTTPS you've still got to navigate to the entrance of the site you want to browse. a VPN wraps all that inside of encryption, of course, but then your VPN knows where you're going. I guess the only way to truly obfuscate your browsing is to use Tor - without scripts. But that breaks so many web pages that I guess there's really no solution.

Maybe. There's a lot of the web that just doesn't have HTTPS.

As an example, I went to https://amazon.com, and was immediately switched to an unencrypted URL. As the article says, Amazon switches to HTTPS for transactions, but it seems there's no way to browse the stores encrypted (absent something like a VPN).

 

[nightbringer57]

Ostracus[/url]":5rn3ao2y]

DarthSlack[/url]":5rn3ao2y]

cheapscot[/url]":5rn3ao2y]$99/month for Gb service is a bargain, so if you don't want to be tracked by *just* your ISP (unlike-every-other-place-on-the-freaking-internet) then don't sign up for the discounted rate.

And just how long will it be until all of the ISPs offer either decent speed with snooping or "affordable" plans that come with dial-up speeds and a 1M cap?

Being forced to trade speed for privacy is absolutely insane and the only reason AT&T can get away with it is the abysmal state of competition in the US ISP market. If there was real competition, this wouldn't fly.

True, but when all you have is lemons, you make lemonade. A VPN is the lemonade in this case. Maybe AT&T will give up once they see it doesn't work.

Will they really care about that tiny fraction of customers that may effectively use a VPN? I doubt it.

 

[Decoherent]

mh4[/url]":3fauyy69]What is the cost of a very good VPN service that can still give you a killer speed?

I know, I know, google it, but I don't always know who is credible and I'm asking for some basic info from people who have more experience than I.

I've been using Private Internet Access for most of the last year, and it's been pretty solid. So far it's never had trouble keeping up with my 40/20 connection. There are a handful of websites that won't work with a VPN (craigslist, my bank), but on the whole it's completely seamless.

For something like this, you'd actually need a VPN at your router, not just each PC, because most of us probably don't generate most of our traffic from PCs. You've got cell phones, game consoles, streaming boxes/sticks, and so on. I'm not aware of a VPN service that makes it consumer-easy to set up a router VPN connection; I've seen instructions for setting up a router running OpenWRT, but it was kind of scary.

 

[ChaoticUnreal]

So you just need to set up a script on a raspberry pi or similar to just hit random web sites 24/7?

That way the targeted ads are back to being random and your value should decrease.

 

[Bruja Malvada]

This crap has been going on for way to long and will not stop. I have never used AT&T, even still, I hate this relentless advertising. I am a female, I only say this because I have been sent baby formula by these advertising stalking operations, and I have no children. It does make a good free baby shower gift though. I will never switch to AT&T. Ugh this makes me want to puke. When there was the NSA revelations issue, I know I am not the only one that was like.... and this is what companies have been doing to sell us products for years, and years, and years. Just go check your junk folders people, or even better, your mail box. In fact, I have several relatives at the post office, and at the union party this year people were joking about how junk mail keeps the post office in business.

 

[Jarrex]

then using the results to deliver personalized ads to the websites you visit

I am confused, isn't this advertising hijacking? How can they deliver ads that a website doesn't actively endorse? Or is it only on AT&T websites?

 

[Shuffy]

Couldn't we class this as spyware and sue AT&T?

Oh wait, we "gladly opted in" when we signed up.

 

[Boskone]

Eddy Current[/url]":1pruo8py]"In Dallas, where Google Fiber hasn't arrived, AT&T was charging $120 a month for gigabit service"

That's because electrons cost more in Dallas. /s

Well, it is a longer logistics trail from D/FW to the bit mines in Latveria.

 

[Malth]

mh4[/url]":3rg3i2a9]What is the cost of a very good VPN service that can still give you a killer speed?

I know, I know, google it, but I don't always know who is credible and I'm asking for some basic info from people who have more experience than I.

I pay like 6 bucks a month for these guys, and I don't really have any complaints. They have an app for android devices too, but I've never used it.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com

 

[trimeta]

Side-note about pricing: for gigabit internet alone, AT&T's $70/month cost match's Google's while violating your privacy. But for the with-TV package, AT&T is actually cheaper: their $120/month package is already cheaper than Google Fiber's $130/month package, and HBO is an extra $20/month from Google. So for users planning on getting cable, picking up AT&T's package and then using a VPN would be cheaper than going with Google's offering.

 

[THavoc]

"If you have AT&T’s gigabit Internet service and wonder why it seems so affordable, here's the reason—AT&T is boosting profits by rerouting all your Web browsing to an in-house traffic scanning platform, analyzing your Internet habits, then using the results to deliver personalized ads to the websites you visit, e-mail to your inbox, and junk mail to your front door"

Wait! I thought only the big bad government did things like this?

So you're telling me that unrestricted business can't be trusted either?

Who knew?

/s

 

[puppies]

This is a little bit like that episode of Black Mirror where people in a dystopian world need to pay money to not be forced to watch ads.

... Wait. This is EXACTLY like that episode.

 

[Corporations Are Patriots]

What would help is if more sites adopted the use of HTTPS, especially if they deal with user-submitted content or track user habits across their site.

For instance, I know of this site called "arstechnica". It's like 15 years old but still hasn't enabled SSL browsing on their site. It sure would be nice if this site were to enable secure connections to their site, especially for comments and their forums.

 

[Kalleguld]

Could you set up a system to route just non-https traffic through a VPN? That would give you full speed on most sites, but still give almost the same level of privacy.

 

[Boskone]

Jarrex[/url]":3oje4q8z]

then using the results to deliver personalized ads to the websites you visit

I am confused, isn't this advertising hijacking? How can they deliver ads that a website doesn't actively endorse? Or is it only on AT&T websites?

They're selling your info to the organizations that "provide" the ads in the first place.

So, basically, you visit websites and AT&T tracks what you visit and how long. They refine this data, and provide it to advertisers, who then mine it to send you "more relevant" ads.

Of course, this completely undercuts e.g. private browsing, but hey...better ads?