AT&T has decided it likes “anti-piracy” technology (in other words DRM) and plans to work with big media companies to develop even more ways to annoy their customers.
In this little announcement, a senior VP let us know that once AT&T and their partners decide on a technology, then “the company would look at privacy and other legal issues”.
Very nice. At least they’re right up front with the contempt for their victims.
So what does all this have to do with those of us who use another carrier?
Well, AT&T, in addition to being the largest provider of internet access in the US, also controls much of the backbone through which web traffic flows.
And their executives have made no secret of their distain for anything resembling net neutrality, despite their promise to “observe the principles” of the concept when they were given permission to gobble up Bell South.
“AT&T is going to act like the copyright police, and that is going to make customers angry,” she [Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge] said. “The good news for AT&T is that there’s so little competition that where else are the customers going to go?”
In the end, however, Ma Bell 2007 and her friends don’t have a clue. It really doesn’t matter what “protection” scheme they devise.
Not long after they put up their wall for the first time, someone will find a way to poke a hole in it.