Title o’ the day: Friendly Fascism.
So, I meander over to Boing Boing for my daily dose of this-n-that, to find that AT&T/SBC are wasting no time getting down to business. I knew no good would come of them merging. It’s bad enough that AT&T were one of the companies accused of secretly handing over subscriber data to the US government, but now that they’re bigger and better, they’ve got the brass balls to come right out and declare that they own your private information, not you. This will apparently be retroactive, and AT&T/SBC will require subscribers to agree to its updated privacy policy as a condition of service. This policy, which will supersede their current policy (the main policy was updated June 16, 2006, but their video and satellite policies have not been updated since 2004), apparently goes into affect on June 23.
Hrmph. No good can come of ginormous mergers like the SBC/Yahoo/AT&T mess. I remember when the Bells were broken up, and the subsequent technological advancements and improvements in customer service. Yeah, I know, it’s hard to believe, but as bad is it is now, it was even worse then. Remember back when you had to lease a phone from Ma Bell? Your options were rotary or push-button, desk or wall-mounted. That’s it. Returning to that sort of business model is not something I look forward to, especially when the scope is so large that it encompasses everything from television to telephone to internet service, and eventually who knows what else?
I guess it’s as good a time as any to switch to Sage, eh? Their privacy policy is short and sweet and non-intrusive, and it actually involves keeping your personal information private. Their prices are much better than AT&T’s, too. I should have switched ages ago, but just didn’t feel motivated, as it wouldn’t have solved my other, hardware-related service problems. (Note for friends and family, Sage services the B-ton and Muncie areas.) I’m feeling all sorts of motivated now, though.
red paper boat 