[Ecommerce] Time-Warner tips privacy hand?
James Love
love@cptech.org
Wed, 11 Oct 2000 15:29:57 -0400
Subject:
Time-Warner tips privacy hand?
Date:
Wed, 11 Oct 2000 15:21:59 -0400 (EDT)
From:
David Cassel <destiny@cloud9.net>
To:
James Love <love@cptech.org>
I think this could be big news. It's breaking information on
Time-Warner
revising their privacy policy. (In anticipation of the AOL deal?)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>From stannc@yahoo.com Wed Oct 11 14:53:16 2000
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 12:37:01 -0400
From: Stan Schwartz <stannc@yahoo.com>
To: David Cassel <destiny@cloud9.net>
Subject: RE: Stan! Time-Warner letter?
David,
This is a six page billing insert in my current Time Warner Cable bill,
similar to the kind that you get when your credit card company bumps up
its
interest rates. The title of the insert is "Subscriber Privacy Notice".
It
makes a number of references to the Cable Communications Policy Act of
1984
and the Electronic Communications Policy Act of 1986.
If you have a fax number, I'll send it over to you. I've already sent
Time
Warner a certified letter instructing them to opt me out of their
information sharing policy. Who knows how much good this will do?
The first part of the insert states in part:
"In order that we may provide services to you and operate efficiently,
we
may collect the following types of information about you that may
constitute
personally identifiable information: your name, home and work address,
telephone numbers, social security number, and credit information."
It also goes on to discuss the number of television sets in my house and
the
number of PC's if I have Road Runner service (which I do).
The second section scares me a bit:
"Personally identifiable information that we maintain related to our
subscribers will be disclosed without the prior written or electronic
consent of subscribers only if:
1. It is necessary to render, or conduct a legitimate business related
to,
the services that are provided to you;
2. such disclosure is required by law or legal process as described
below;
or
3. for mailing lists as described below.
The types of persons to whom information about you may be disclosed in
the
course of providing cable service to you include the employees of Time
Warner Cable and its related legal entities, agents, repair and
installation
subcontractors, sales representatives, accountants, billing and
collection
services and credit reporting agencies, consumer and market research
firms,
and authorized representatives of government bodies."
Are they kidding????
"Unless you object, the Cable Act also permits us to disclose personally
identifiable information to others, such as advertisers and direct mail
or
telemarketers, for non-cable related purposes...your name, address, and
the
particular services to which you subscribe (e.g., HBO or other premium
channels or tiers of service). Mailing list information cannot include
the
extent of your viewing habits or use of a particular service..."
In other words, TWC/AOL HAS that information but they won't share it
outside
of AOL. Nice.
However, the only option that I get is to opt out of mailing lists, NOT
the
sharing of information among related companies!!!
- Stan
-----Original Message-----
From: David Cassel [mailto:destiny@cloud9.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 11:29 AM
To: stannc@yahoo.com
Subject: Stan! Time-Warner letter?
> Your recent AOL Watch article was almost as ominous as the information
> disclosure that I received from Time Warner Cable this month. Basically,
> it says that they're going to share every bit of information they have
> about me with everyone they know (or owns them).
>
> Great, now AOL will have my social security number.
I think I can put this in a compelling context. One of the biggest
assets
of the Time-Warner merger for AOL is the access to Time-Warner's info on
their subscribers. The Wall Street Journal (3/15/00) ran an article
about
how AOL is able to charge top-dollar for advertising by aggressively
seeking-out demographic information about their customers. (Sometimes
they'll even combine data they've purchased from other mailing lists
with
their own information, to create super-demographics.) The Journal's
reporter warned that "AOL could gain another rich source of data when it
completes its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Inc. The media giant
has information on the reading and listening habits of the 65 million
households that receive its books, magazines and CDs. Indeed, privacy
was
a major concer of lawmarkers during recent Senate hearings."
My thinking was that AOL *did* have aggressive plans for the data of
Time-Warner users -- and they were going through the formality of
notifying customers that Time-Warner's privacy policy had changed. In
July of 1997, AOL quietly changed their Terms of Service agreement to
allow them to sell subscribers' home phone numbers to telemarketers. I
reported it on my newsletter, and it got picked up by most of the major
news outlets. After the resulting public outcry, AOL rescinded the
language.
http://www.aolwatch.com/list/0063.html
So it's possible that AOL is telegraphing their intentions for
Time-Warner's subscriber data -- even before the merger has been
approved
by government regulators. In June the New York Times reported CNN
content
was already appearing on the AOL-owned NetCenter on Netscape.
"[L]ower-level executives at both companies have been told not to wait
until the merger is complete to find ways to work with one another."
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/06/biztech/articles/24online.html
Sometimes it's seemed that AOL, to cover themselves legally, has quietly
announced controversial policies before they implement them. Remember
the
busy signal crisis of 1997. (In January, 80% of subscribers couldn't
sign-on, according to researchers at Inverse Technologies.) Just a few
weeks earlier, Steve Case had actually sent a postal letter to
subscribers. In it he promised that AOL was upgrading their network,
but
"No matter how hard we try, we do expect the sudden increase in use...to
create some temporary 'traffic congestion'--especially during our peak
hours."
http://www.aolwatch.com/list/0024.html
---
David Cassel
The AOL Watch Newsletter
http://www.aolwatch.org/list
7
--
James Love mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176