AT&T Charges Steep Premium for Privacy, Calls it a 'Discount'

AT&T continues to insist that the company's practice of charging broadband customers up to $60 more to not be spied on...is actually a generous discount being offered by the company. As we noted a few years ago, AT&T has started charging its broadband customers signficiantly more if they want to opt out of AT&T's Internet Preferences program, which uses deep-packet inspection to track and monetize user behavior around the Internet.

With AT&T busy suing Google Fiber from entering Louisville to thwart competition in the market, one local Louisville paper took notice of AT&T's practice of making privacy a pricey premium option.

In a conversation with Louisville Business First, AT&T insisted that they are simply giving their broadband customers a choice and a "discount."

“We offer customers a choice to share their data or not,” she said in the email. “If they do, they receive a discount and relevant advertising tailored to their interests.”

But that's not really how AT&T's snoopvertising really works. As previous reports have indicated, actually opting out of Internet Preferences can be a difficult option to even find if you're a new customer. And few are likely to choose it given it dramatically raises a customer's monthly bill from between $531 and $800 the first year .

Still, according to AT&T, the company's doing its customers a favor by watching them, building personal user profiles, then hitting them with ads driven by browsing behavior.

"Let’s say a customer purchases concert tickets in Miami; they might see advertising with coupons for restaurants around the venue," says AT&T. Is that worth up to $800 more in fees per year? Should opting out cost consumers more in the first place?

AT&T's currently fighting a new FCC push to pass tougher broadband privacy protections. The protections would simply require that ISPs are transparent about what they're collecting and provide simple working opt out tools. AT&T has consistently tried to argue the industry can self-regulate on this front, but its vision of privacy as a confusing, luxury option runs in stark contrast to that claim.