Opting Out of AT&T's 'Gigapower' Snooping is Comically Expensive When AT&T first launched their 1 Gbps (which is still actually 300 Mbps, but whatever) "Gigapower" service in Austin late last year in response to Google Fiber, the company's pricing raised a few eyebrows. In addition to the $350 ETF, installation and activation fees (which Google doesn't charge), AT&T only matched Google's $70 pricing point if you agreed to opt in to the company's Internet Preferences, which goes beyond Google-esque snooping to use deep packet inspection to track each and every website you visit, and for how long.

If you aren't willing to be tracked, users have to pay $100 a month; in other words a $30 privacy protection tax. Interestingly, Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOM has discovered that the $30 privacy tax is actually significantly higher if you add TV services: quote: But the $29 more a month to keep your privacy isn’t actually $29 a month. As you add video service, the price differential between choosing privacy and letting AT&T snoop rose to $62 a month for an equivalent package and included a $49 one-time fee (see the screenshot below). Keeping your web history out of Ma Bell’s hands would have cost almost $800 the first year you signed up at the high-end and $531 at the low-end of ordering only internet (there’s a $99 activation fee and a $7 monthly gateway box fee). So not only is the fee to not be snooped on an absurd $62 a month, you'll also get socked with a $50 activation fee if you try to opt out of the program. This really is competition in only the way AT&T could envision it. It's particularly odd in that AT&T could have just quietly opted everybody in to Internet Preferences by default at the $70 price point, and few probably would have even noticed (or cared). By breaking it out as an added "discount," AT&T only really draws attention to their snoopvertising.On the bright side, since AT&T's supposed expansion of Gigapower to 100 additional cities is largely So not only is the fee to not be snooped on an absurd $62 a month, you'll also get socked with a $50 activation fee if you try to opt out of the program. This really is competition in only the way AT&T could envision it. It's particularly odd in that AT&T could have just quietly opted everybody in to Internet Preferences by default at the $70 price point, and few probably would have even noticed (or cared). By breaking it out as an added "discount," AT&T only really draws attention to their snoopvertising.On the bright side, since AT&T's supposed expansion of Gigapower to 100 additional cities is largely criticism-deflecting PR bluff , AT&T's all-too-clever Gigapower privacy tax probably won't be visiting your neck of the woods anytime soon.







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Mike

Mod

join:2000-09-17

Pittsburgh, PA 4 recommendations Mike Mod I think we need to do some research Let's find someone who picked Gigapower over Google Fiber and interview em.



Perhaps have a local psychiatrist on call too.

MacMan

@216.23.16.x 3 recommendations MacMan Anon Curious So I'm curious... If I use an encrypted VPN service would the deep packet inspection even allow them to see anything other than my "vpn" connection? It shouldn't allow them to see the traffic I'm passing inside that VPN connection. Wonder if they can't see anything other than VPN traffic if they'd slow you down for "working" the system.