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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 26 2016, @04:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the contacts-in-context dept.

They know how you browse the internet, your favorite TV shows and where you shop and travel.

Data collected by internet and media companies is a powerful tool, and the big mergers planned by AT&T with Time Warner and Verizon with Yahoo offer those firms more data that can be used to target consumers with content and advertising.

Privacy advocates say the prospect of firms using all that online and offline data without safeguards could be alarming.

"Twenty-first century media is all about the ability to gather information on a single individual regardless of where they are—whether they are using mobile phone or watching TV or in a grocery store," said Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy rights group.

The $85 billion deal unveiled Saturday would combine AT&T, one of the largest mobile telecom and residential internet operators, with Time Warner, the media-entertainment giant with powerful brands including the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network and a major online game studio.

[...] The tie-up comes as the Federal Communications Commission is set to consider privacy rules for internet service providers like AT&T and Verizon.

The rules would require consumers to "opt in" to allow companies to combine data from different sources to deliver ads and content.

"The FCC privacy rule is critical to ensuring there are safeguards," Chester said. "Right now there are no safeguards."

[...] John Verdi of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington think tank, said that in both the AT&T-Time Warner and Verizon-Yahoo deals, "data is a key asset" but that the companies should respect promises made when the data was collected.

"Users are typically concerned when data is collected about them and used in unexpected ways," Verdi said.

"It's important for companies to keep the promises they made after the merged entity moves forward to maintain the trust of consumers."

Expect a raft of new tech job openings with "experience with Big Data" in the descriptions, to help the new mega companies mine it properly.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by drussell on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:03PM

    by drussell (2678) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:03PM (#419045) Journal

    It's too bad the content producters and distributors were ever allowed to begin to merge into these huge media conglomerates in the first place.

    There would be no wars between the various distributors over how much they should get paid to carry others' content, etc.

    We could have had a nice, open marketplace that allowed all the creators of content to shop their wares to ALL distributors, whether they be traditional OTA, cable, IPTV, online, mobile, etc. The NetFlix of the world would be able to carry whatever their customers wanted. The content producers would get paid according to how popular and in demand their content was. Produce good content, everyone will want to carry it. Produce obscure content and those that DO want to watch it would be able to have an outlet to get it from. Distributors big and small would be able to go after the mass market or the niche and have access to whatever content they wanted from the market.

    Sadly, it will be very difficult to undo the mess that has been created short of a Standard Oil type breakup and that won't be happening anytime soon in the current political climate..... So.... It will probably be the death of television as we know it, to which I say (because of the current horrible, putrid mess and the resultant, mostly garbage, content and unavailability en mass of truly interesting content) GOOD RIDDANCE!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @06:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @06:59PM (#419093)

      The formulas are old and tired, but with megacorp lockin producers aren't allowed the create the content they WANT to create. Its like old school Patrons, except the corps only care about profit and not art. Humanity needs to free itself, and increasingly we are seeing the success of smaller communities that manage themselves, along with tech that can make every individual their own marketplace. We don't need as many middle men mucking about screwing things up. The petty little tyrants need to find something better to do with their time, and ideally in a free society people would simply shun working with such jerks.

    • (Score: 2) by http on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:30PM

      by http (1920) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:30PM (#419109)

      Your "too bad" idea is horrifying. Television is dying because content producers don't control the more efficient broadcast/distribution system, and that is a good thing. Mander pointed out over 40 years ago that the mechanics of television necessarily tries to filter out certain kinds of content (censoring it with near 100% efficiency), but the business of television, particularly advertising, filters out even more. Now I'm kinda curious how a netflix sponsored show would withstand Mander's Technical Event Test, or even how it could be conducted seeing as there's no advertisements during the show.

      --
      I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
      • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:05PM

        by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:05PM (#419481)

        Why would the lack of advertisements prevent the technical event test?

        The first article I found about it say it describes the number of artificial transitions per minute. Further, that the popularity of a show can be predicted by the number of transitions per minute.

        • (Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:12PM

          by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:12PM (#419487)

          Actually, the technical event test explains a novel format I hate: 3 threads with cliff-hangers at the end of every chapter.

        • (Score: 2) by http on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:26PM

          by http (1920) on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:26PM (#419494)

          Because it needs to be compared to the number of technical events in the accompanying commercials. Mander posited that the rate found in a show will rarely exceed (and infrequently approach) the rate found in its sponsoring commercials, lest the consumer remember the wrong thing.

          --
          I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:16PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:16PM (#419051) Journal
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:30AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:30AM (#419254)

      And he is absolutely correct. The issue isn't monopoly per se, but its persistence over time and barriers to market.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fujeSSEqj74 [youtube.com]

      That the FCC is considering privacy concerns and how those are met going forward means the system is working as it should, and indeed we should have had this discussion a long time ago.

      What is of bigger concern is barriers to entry for smaller operators, not that AT&T is making a gamble purchasing Time Warner.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:14PM (#419411)
      Still a better option than a criminal or a buffoon, both of whom likely support the merger as well.
  • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:24PM

    by art guerrilla (3082) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:24PM (#419057)

    ...you won't have to worry about anything, citizen: we will all be one, safe and at peace; we will all be one, controlled and contained; we will all be one, good and proper; we will all be one, thinking and believing; we will all be one, whether you fucking like it or not, citizen...
    (relax, you won't feel a thing...)

  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:25PM

    by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:25PM (#419059)
    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:59PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @05:59PM (#419077)

      They expect to get more than 85 Billion dollars out of it, in a short period.
      300 million Americans. Do the math.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @06:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @06:07PM (#419078)

        Yay for taxpayers funding their own oppression! These companies work hard, they DESERVE their profits!!

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:09PM

    by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:09PM (#419100)

    [...] Time Warner, the media-entertainment giant with powerful brands including the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network and a major online game studio.

    Why does the video game studio not get mentioned by name? I can't stand this vague stuff. I'm wondering what the point of mentioning it so vaguely is. Maybe they wanted to just give an idea of the width and depth of TW. But what does this company they own do?

    So I looked.

    They own Warner Bros, which includes Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which includes Monolith (F.E.A.R., Condemned, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor), Rocksteady (Batman: Arkham City and some related ones), NetherRealm (Mortal Kombat games and mobile games for other WB properties), and Turbine (Asheron's Call, Dungeons & Dragons Online, The Lord of the Rings Online, some other MMOs). There's a couple of other ones too but I got tired of going through them, I think that gives you some idea though.

    They also own Trion Worlds. I wasn't familiar with these guys, they look like they might be the company referenced. Mostly MMOs, but both publishing and development (sometimes one or the other, sometimes both): Rift, Archeage, Trove, Devilian, Atlas Reactor, some other free-to-play MMO type games. I've seen some of these games in ads mostly, never really looked to see how interesting or good they are. When they act as publisher it seems to be Korean imports mostly.

    The only other game company I could find reference to was Double Fusion, but there's so many companies, I probably missed some. They specialize in in-game ads supposedly. I didn't know that was a real thing you could specialize in.

    I just thought it was interesting. Consider my data here potentially incomplete!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @07:24PM (#419105)

      > I'm wondering what the point of mentioning it so vaguely is.

      Its because it is not a household name and nobody other than fanbois really cares what it is, knowing the industry is sufficient for the ideas the article is discussing. Failure to cater to your narrow interests is not a conspiracy, its a fact of life for everybody with narrow interests.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:15PM (#419457)

        reactionary comment mod == "-1 Douchebag"

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:43PM (#419471)

    Expect an increase in your bill any day now: "You have the right to request that we don't sell your data, but that will cause a 300% rise in your internet bill because of ... reasons"
    It's like Nationwide's (or is it Allstate?) dongle that monitors your driving habits 24/7/365. They tell you that you'll get a discount, but in reality, you'll just get penalized. And not 'choosing' to opt-in will penalize you as well.
    Lose-lose...