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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

AT&T tried this and it didn't go well. For a time you could get a discount on your internet if you opted into their data tracking programs. From what I heard, there was a lot of complaining and little uptake, which is backed up by the fact that they cancelled the program less than a year later and just started charging everyone the lower price (and claimed that they stopped the tracking).

I think people don't want to be reminded that they're being tracked, which is possibly why it went poorly, but this will be a problem with any company that wants to do opt in tracking.

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At 13m in, he uses the fact that around 10% have turned on DNT in theri browser as a proof that people actually care about tracking, but haven't multiple browsers started turning on DNT by default?

Yes Microsoft enabled it by default in their browser (can't remember if this was the days of IE or Edge) and advertisers used that as an excuse that "DNT doesn't represent user choice" and that they could ignore it.

Safari is removing (or removed already?) DNT simply because websites are still tracking visitors regardless if DNT was enabled or not.

And because DNT was used as an additional data point to fingerprint the browser and enable more tracking.

Just confirming, it was already removed!

Discounting Internet by axing privacy is a nasty idea. Privacy should be available by default without any added price tags.

This isn't some moral position, it's an economic one.

ISP's make money with the data they gather. Once you remove that as a revenue stream, it'll naturally increase the prices those companies are willing to charge.

They make more than enough money by providing the Internet service. They should have nothing to do with your data. Especially considering, how easily they can spy on you. It's like your post office delivery would charge you more, if they'll not sniff through your mail. This thing shouldn't even come up as a "feature", it should be the always enabled default.

The USPS likely would charge you more, if they weren't already in the business of selling both address lists and access (carrier route deliveries of bulk mail). So they might not be sniffing your mail, but from what it seems the postal service needs your data to survive.

That's why it should be a government service. No more tracking by private companies reselling your data to everyone and their dog. No more foreign governments selling you crazy ads.

It's not like government can't abuse privacy all the same.

> They make more than enough money by providing the Internet service

So you are going to decide whether they are making enough money? Don't like tracking? Switch over to a privacy respecting ISP.

It's obvious greed. There is no need to violate people's privacy for the ISP. Which you yourself point out. They don't do it out of need, but because they can.

> Switch over to a privacy respecting ISP.

As if this was a readily available option.

Verizon did it too, they would give you a token amount of "rewards points" or something like that which you could use on accessories or bull credit if I recall.

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