AT&T to customers: All your data are belong to us

US TELCO AT&T has rewritten its privacy policy to allow it to hand over customer records to whoever it wants.

The re-write has come about after the telco got into trouble for handing over phone records of ordinary Americans to the US government.

According to the new policy AT&T, not customers, own customers' confidential info and the Telco can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

The new policy allows AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service and give that to whoever it likes as well.

Legal experts say that AT&T seems to have re-written its so widely to avoid consumer-protection lawsuits. The outfit is being sued by San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation for allegedly allowing the NSA to tap into the company's data network, providing warrantless access to customers' e-mails and Web browsing.

The move goes back on a comment made last month when AT&T said in a statement it had "a long history of vigorously protecting customer privacy" and that "our customers expect, deserve and receive nothing less than our fullest commitment to their privacy."

In fact a line in the 2004 policy which said "that privacy is an important issue for our customers and members" has been deleted.

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