After the recent change in AT&T's privacy policy (see coverage in the Washington Post), I thought I'd spend some time looking for a broadband provider with a better privacy policy.
Sadly, I couldn't find one.
Covad says they will, at their sole discretion, share your information with third parties if they "believe it is reasonable to do so".
Comcast has almost the same line in their privacy policy, as do all the other providers I looked at.
It's odd, but AT&T's policy is stricter. They do not include the easy out of the other services, instead they spell out exactly when they will share it. Some of the phrases are still a little broad ("To prevent unlawful use of communications or other services"), but it's much more specific than the other ISPs I looked at.
The unfortunate part is AT&T's stated opinion that my information is actually their information. If they own it, is it covered by their privacy policy? I think, if that situation were to arise, one could make a strong case in court that the privacy policy still holds, and that the information was obtained by the government illegally. You can't do that with the other policies.
I do wish someone would state in their privacy policy, "We will not share your private information with the government without a subpoena." Until then, I guess I'm sticking with AT&T.
