Opting Out of AT&T's 1 Gbps Internet Snooping is Comically Expensive

[DamianTV]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/O...pensive-133132

When AT&T first launched their 1 Gbps "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 was only willing to truly match 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.

Originally, it was believed that it would cost users around $30 a month extra if they didn't want to be tracked by AT&T. But then GigaOM's Stacey Higginbotham penned a great report highlighting how it was actually substantially more than that. Higginbotham noted that not only did AT&T make the option very difficult to find, it would actually cost users between $49 and $60 per month to opt out of:

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.

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Only the Rich will be able to afford Privacy. Everyone else must be a Terrorist.

[Natural Citizen]

Blackmail. Extortion. Likely some other terms that escape me at the moment...