• djackson 22568 (7/18/2013)


    Ah, but that is the catch. You don't own a cell number. The cell company owns it. If you transfer it to another carrier, it is still theirs to do with as they please. Think of how land lines were sold to you, then they sold the numbers to marketing companies, then they sold you call blocking, caller id, et cetera. None of these are necessary except to stop intrusions caused by the company that provides you the number!

    Your name isn't yours either, because companies own their sales history, and the fact that your name bought it, and they can choose to sell it if they wish.

    You are right, but humorously coincidental I had this e-mail in my inbox this morning:

    July 18, 2013

    Regarding Account Number: 9xxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Dear Valued Customer,

    We know your privacy is important, so we've made it a priority to talk to you about it. We're revising our Privacy Policy to make it easier to understand, and we want to point out two new programs that could help us and other businesses serve you better.

    The first program will make reports available to businesses. These reports will contain anonymous information about groups of customers, such as how they collectively use our products and services. The second program will use local geography as a factor in delivering online and mobile ads to the people who might find them most useful.

    As always, we follow important principles to keep your trust:

    We are committed to protecting your privacy.

    We provide you with privacy choices.

    We will not sell information that identifies you to anyone, for any purpose. Period.

    We are committed to listening and keeping you informed about how we protect your privacy.

    The two new programs are described in this notice, including your privacy choices for each. You can also read the new and old versions of our privacy policy at att.com/privacy.

    To provide feedback on the new policy, please write us in the next 30 days at privacyfeedback@att.com or AT&T Privacy Policy, 1120 20th Street NW, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20036.

    Sincerely,

    Robert W. Quinn Jr.

    AT&T

    Senior Vice President - Federal Regulatory & Chief Privacy Officer

    But I'm sure my data is still being fed to the NSA.



    ----------------
    Jim P.

    A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.