Comcast and AT&T published blog posts this morning responding to the backlash they’ve been receiving since Congress voted to revoke a strong set of internet privacy rules that would have prevented internet providers from using or sharing their customers’ web browsing history without permission. The companies take very different approaches when responding, but the takeaway from both is that they think customers should stop worrying.
Comcast takes the friendlier approach and actually makes some basic commitments to customers. “We do not sell our broadband customers’ individual web browsing history,” writes Gerard Lewis, Comcast’s chief privacy officer. “We did not do it before the FCC’s rules were adopted, and we have no plans to do so.”
“The Congressional action had zero effect.”
Of course, “no plans to do so,” is not the same thing as “we will never do so,” but Comcast is largely indicating here what we’ve suspected: that people’s worst fears — ISPs letting people buy their web history — isn’t likely to happen for any number of reasons.
Comcast also says it will rework its privacy policy to “make more clear and prominent that … we do not sell our customers’ individual web browsing information to third parties and that we do not share sensitive information unless our customers have affirmatively opted in to allow that to occur.” (Though note that, in this context, “sensitive” information is limited to specific things, like health information and data on children.)