Comcast, AT&T, T-Mobile Stink Up EFF Consumer Privacy Ratings

The Electronic Freedom Foundation this week released their "Who Has Your Back?" scorecard, which rates company privacy practices and how far companies are willing to go when the government comes asking for your personal information. While ISPs like Sonic and Credo, and companies like Adobe, Dropbox, Lyft and Pinterest all received stellar marks from the EFF for their privacy policies, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and T-Mobile all received among the lowest marks of all the companies' tracked.

The low ratings come after these ISPs lobbied Congress and the Trump administration to gut consumer broadband privacy protections

The poor showing by ISPs also isn't particuraly surprising given many of them are effectively now bone grafted to the US intelligence gathering apparatus, often even going well beyond what government originally asked of them.

To determine the rankings, the EFF overview says it tracks whether companies follow industry-wide best practices (modest guidelines dictating they do the bare minimum to protect your privacy), informs users about government data requests, "promises not to sell out users," stands up to national security gag orders (more on those here), and publicly support reforms in Congress that improve oversight of government surveillance.

Outside of doing the bare minimum, nobody outside of Sonic or CREDO mobile received more than one star. That of course includes T-Mobile, which at one point attacked the EFF after the group pointed out the uncarrier's opposition to net neutrality.

"Telecommunications companies like AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, and Verizon are failing to live up to larger tech industry practices," notes the EFF. "When it comes to adopting policies that prioritize user privacy over facilitating government data demands, the telecom industry for the most part has erred on the side of prioritizing government requests."

"But telecommunications companies can do better," says the group. "For example, Credo Mobile has repeatedly proven that telecom companies can adopt policies that earn credit in every category year after year. Similarly, Sonic, an ISP competitor to AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, and Verizon, has now earned credit in every category of EFF’s annual report for five years."

You can find the full breakdown of the measurement criteria and the EFF's full company privacy rankings here