Thread: Review: AT&T U-VERSE

I was wondering, in the TOS for the service is there anything abour privacy? Since the STB in the home needs to communicate back to the VRAD what channel you want to view/record, if AT&T wanted toif they're not doing so already, could collect viewing information.

Originally Posted by rad

I was wondering, in the TOS for the service is there anything abour privacy? Since the STB in the home needs to communicate back to the VRAD what channel you want to view/record, if AT&T wanted toif they're not doing so already, could collect viewing information.

Tivo has been doing that for years, but they claim that it's only used to gather statistical information and they don't collect information about which user was watching which channels.

Want an idea how detailed Tivo's collection is? They can even get information about where you pause or replay particular shows. Remember the Janet Jackson Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction? A few days after that, there was information out from Tivo that reported the percentage of users who paused and replayed that scene.

Tivo lashed back against the privacy critics with their claim that no personally identifiable information is gathered. Similar to how Microsoft claims the same thing every time you link up to get your updates.

Originally Posted by dhoffman_98

Tivo has been doing that for years, but they claim that it's only used to gather statistical information and they don't collect information about which user was watching which channels.

Yep, they let you know this and you can opt out of the process. But has AT&T said anything about it for their service? With D* and E* if you want to make sure you can just not plug the STB into the phone or network but you can't do that with UVerse since the STB must have two way communications back to the VRAD. Just trying to brign it up for discussion since some folks don't want providers to know their viewing habits.

Whats interesting is when you sign up they give you a laptop to read and sign the user agreement, of course they all sit and stare at you as they wait for you to sign it.

You only get a few lines into it before you go ahead and sign it, but I dont remember being given a copy of what I signed, nor is there a copy of the user agreement on the uverse website.

So I dont have that answer to your question RAD.

Originally Posted by Scott Greczkowski

Whats interesting is when you sign up they give you a laptop to read and sign the user agreement, of course they all sit and stare at you as they wait for you to sign it.

You only get a few lines into it before you go ahead and sign it, but I dont remember being given a copy of what I signed, nor is there a copy of the user agreement on the uverse website.

So I dont have that answer to your question RAD.

Interesting point. I'm getting installed on Tuesday and I'll keep that in mind. Maybe I'll see if I can't find a URL to the document they are showing me, or let him dump it to my printer. Either way, if I can find anything that can be made into a soft copy, I'll see if I can't post it.

The way they do it is kind of funny, as they can't start work until you sign it, and its a long document.

Did it look like this?


https://uma.sbc.com/offers/OFFER_2/disclosure.html

And here's a link to the current privacy policy:

http://helpme.att.net/article.php?item=8620

Latest changes about the privacy policy:
http://helpme.att.net/article.php?item=3672

And other general legal issues here:

http://helpme.att.net/results.php?all=0&category=33

Hopefully these links will work.

Ahh excellent find!

I dont see anything in there about them using or not using viewer habbits of their customers.