Posted by: Bob Quinn on November 17, 2010 at 6:06 pm
A little over a year ago, AT&T’s unwieldy privacy policy, which actually numbered 17 different policies, and came in at 37,000-plus words, was shrunk to one policy, at a more svelte 8,000’ish words.
I tell you this because, as some of you know, the duties of chief privacy officer were added to my day job about two months ago. And our priority is to continue to build upon the success and leadership we have forged under my missed predecessor Dorothy Attwood in giving consumers more control over their personal information.
The first step for living up to a consumer control framework is to be vigilant about telling consumers, in clear language, what information we have about them, how it is being used and shared, and how we protect their information. To that end, today we are updating our privacy policy with some further clarifications about our practices.
As we did with the initial launch, we will preview the updated policy for 45 days to gather feedback from our customers before it goes into effect. Based on that feedback, we may further refine the policy.
What are these updates? In short, the updates clarify some of the language in our policy to make it more clear and therefore more transparent to our customers. They include:
- More information about what information we collect via U-verse services. We make more explicit that U-verse services include U-verse TV and U-verse Mobile.
- More transparency on the collection and use of location information. We want to make sure that our customers understand the approximate location of their wireless device can be determined in different ways, and that we use all types of location information for network optimization as well as to provide voice and data services.
- Greater detail about aggregate and anonymous information. We explain where it comes from and that we may use and share aggregate and anonymous information with trusted non-AT&T companies for a variety of purposes. For example, we may share aggregate and anonymous information to estimate travel times for a GPS mapping service.
- Information about Flash cookies and how to manage them. We explain that we use flash cookies to remember settings and preferences related to video and interactive gaming, and provide information about how to manage those cookies.
While it’s important to be succinct, we also think it’s important to err on the side of explaining to customers our practices, even if we explain things most others don’t. For instance, while some of the clarifications I’ve summarized above are common business practices, we think it should be common practice that they be disclosed and explained clearly.
Within the last few weeks, as we’ve been putting the finishing touches on our updated policy, we’ve seen the international community speak more forcefully about breaches of Internet users’ personal information, we’ve read how the U.S. regulatory bodies will be issuing reports/recommendations in this area, and we’ve watched two of the biggest U.S. Internet players slug it out, using what they call “data liberation” teams, over which one of them should control a user’s information. And, The Wall Street Journal just reported that the White House is stepping up its oversight by creating a new position to police Internet privacy.
Our view is that it is the customer who should control his or her personal information, and the entire ecosystem should be working towards building a framework of interoperable permissions, ultimately controlled by the customer and honored by all companies.
So, take a look at our policy changes, and let us know what you think.
