AT&T offers gigabit Internet discount in exchange for your Web history | Hacker News Reader

AT&T offers gigabit Internet discount in exchange for your Web history

arstechnica.com

46 pointsem3rgent0rdr45 comments

There's a slight positive aspect to this, which is that if consumers start to understand just how valuable this information is, they might start demanding their cut. In this case, in the form of cheaper service. That would cause a significant shift in the market as a whole; I wouldn't even try to do a full analysis but it seems to me likely to result in an improvement.

In addition to the moral and social implications of widespread privacy infringement that is the more typical line of HN argumentation, it's also offensive and corrosive that this value is being plucked from you without you having an opportunity to bargain like someone providing a valuable commodity, rather than as a degrading "eyeball". Some people may find $360 a year a worthy trade for their browser history.

I'm afraid it would go the opposite way—everyone chooses the cheaper, less private plans, then the company raises the prices and the ad-ridden plans eventually start costing the same as the old neutral plans, while the neutral plans (sold as "private" premium options) get premium prices - 5x what the ad-ridden plans (and the old neutral plans) once cost, etc.

If they can do that then competition will appear and will offer it for less... Nothing stop them from offering the current plan for 5x the price, except potential competition.

What's really offensive and scary is that it's obviously worth more than $360 per year.

How so? Valuing the average user's data at $360 a year would mean it would be about $100Bn across the entire US. This is the amount of total digital ad spend over the last year. Comcast would have to own the entire digital ad world and have 0 cost for this to be a break-even proposition for them.

In reality, your user data is probably worth around $30.

Good point. Why would they offer such a steep discount if it were not worth that much?

But $100Bn would be if every American were a paying customer. So maybe they are expecting the people most likely to accept this offer are households with many users. And maybe those younger users are the ones most valuable?

That you called it a "steep discount" is why. Imagine that the market optimal price for the plain service is $70 and the amount they could monetize from personal data is $2 a month.

By offering the $100 tier, most people are going to think "Wow, $30 discount per month! That's a great savings" and a small percentage of die hard privacy advocates are going to buy the $100 plan on pure principle, leading to basically all profit from Comcast.

Note, in this scheme, the $2 a month extra Comcast gets from selling your user data is basically irrelevant. They could actually just do nothing with your data and still come out ahead. It's the pricing psychology game that's important.

> "this value is being plucked from you without you having an opportunity to bargain like someone providing a valuable commodity, rather than as a degrading "eyeball". "

Do you consider reading sites (other than this one) without making direct payments -- subscription, per-article -- to be without value?

You're paying with your time and attention. That's the bargain.

It'd be great to have ways to turn your engagement into currency more directly.

And this is why HTTP 2.0 needs mandatory end-to-end encryption.

Seems like a throwback to TV -- you pay for the service and you get ads.

What if I take the discount, then spend that money on a VPN?

I wouldn't be surprised if they try to sneak in a provision in the Terms of Service prohibiting VPN use.

They would have to distinguish between my employers VPN traffic and other VPN traffic. If I cannot remote to work their service is a non-starter.

A gigabit VPN?

Yeah, thats doubtful but you can run your own on a VPS (OpenVPN and DD-WRT router) and can push several hundred mbps no problem and probably closer to 500mbps; assuming the VPS is connected via gigabit.

This is exactly what I thought when I saw read this story. Just combine this gigabit service with an Amazon EC2 reserve instance.

Remember that EC2 charges $0.12/GB for data transfer so $30 only buys you 250 GB. I suppose if you used a spot micro instance and only sent not-already-encrypted data through it you could save money.

Linode, DigitalOcean, etc

tor exit nodee.

I'd be willing to sell swaths of encrypted VPN traffic and the IP address of a data center in New Jersey for $29 a month

It would be interesting to find out how they plan to implement the adds. If the adds are inserted into the web pages, I would think that content providers would have a good legal claim against AT&T for copyright infringement, if the adds replace the already existing adds, then copyright infringement and loss of profits.

"You might receive these offers or ads online, via email or through direct mail." http://att.com/InternetPreferences

I don't think it's very realistic to consider them doing that. The backlash would be immense, and there's no reason to do it in the first place.

All they have to do is work with existing ad networks. Then, when the user hits a page (the page already has an ad on it) and the ad network determines that the user is an AT&T subscriber, the ad is targeted using that data, and AT&T gets a cut.

There is an option to opt-out but if this thing is successful, in not too long opt-out will not be available.

I'm very curious where you see the ads. Is there some forced viewing before browsing? Do they replace ads found on sites you normally visit? Will AdBlock work on these AT&T-delivered ads?

It's probably a back channel into existing evil ad networks.

Maybe like retargeting (just using existing ad space to show the same at 500 times a day), except all your private information will be logged at your ISP then sent to the ad platform without your intervention.

The ad platform will end up with a mapping of: Your IP => {Your Search Terms, Your Website Visits, Your Social Media Cohorts, Your Unencrypted Site Cookies, ...}

It wouldn't seem that difficult for nerds to game this. Randomized searches on Amazon and Google run occasionally in the background, while all real traffic passes through an encrypted VPN (the speed hit theoretically being negligible over fiber).

Still, most users will probably just shrug and accept it as normal, much like with Kindle "offers". Not exactly a positive trend-line.

It's cute. Whoever signs up for it will make money for AT&T on ads. Whoever opts out will be closely watched by NSA because you know, you opt-out :)

30% off for your personal info... when the competitor price is free (also for your personal info).

att really believes uverse tv will be that good of a differential competing against free?

It seems like they're testing out new pricing models - doubt this will stick. BUT I applaud the use of testing in these situations! Pricing is sooo tuff.

Where are the ads? Are they just going to insert at the top of every webpage I load?

Can I target their users with ad for https everywhere?

I'd rather pay the $29/mo more.

Payed for by your friendly NSA.

Conversation somewhere in Austin...

Billybob: Yo Jimbob! AT&T says they'll cut my bill $30 if I let them track my Googly searches.

Jimbob: Well dang! Sign us both up Billybob. They're already spying on us anyways, so let's get paid for it!

$70 instead of $100, not $100 off.

Fixed.

This person has never been to austin.

Yeah, well, I lived in DFW for awhile and traveled around the state during that time. Close enough for my comfort.

Austin actually isn't part of Texas.

You mean other than it being the Capitol?

The state capitol isn't really part of Austin, but we've got them totally surrounded.

If you really had lived in DFW you would know we're more dignified here. JimBob and BillyBob are far to informal, it's JimRobert and BillyRobert if you please.

Indeed, I am living near Austin and addressed by my cousins as John Robert, thank you very much.

My Northern ears aren't delicate enough to have picked up on those semantics. All I remember is Ya'll this and Ya'll that, cinnamon seasoned beans and rice (from some place my dad loved to eat at in down town Dallas) and lots of beer basted brisket.

For bonus points, I've seen Slacker. That should count for something.

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