» And at least one congressman is angry: “We cannot allow privacy protections to be swept aside with the sweeping nature of these information requests, especially for innocent consumers,” said Rep. Edward Markey, who released the data Monday.
They didn’t say anything about cash or jewelry, but the SEC did side with three AT&T investors — including the Beastie Boys’ Michael “Mike D” Diamond — who believed that shareholders should have a vote in the company’s net neutrality policy, because it has become part of the national debate. AT&T argued that the vote would “directly interfere with its network management practices”, but ultimately the SEC ruled that wireless providers must now allow for shareholder votes on net neutrality proposals. Should such proposals pass, providers would be required to “operate a neutral network with neutral routing along the company’s wireless infrastructure.” source
» Killing a major headache: With public scrutiny going against them, Sprint, the largest user of Carrier IQ, has decided that the public relations cost was too much, according to a statement released Friday: “We have weighed customer concerns and we have disabled use of the tool so that diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected. At Sprint, we work hard to earn the trust of our customers and believe this course of action is in the best interest of our business and customers.” Really, though, the problem is that they enabled it in the first place.
» It’s all about infrastructure: AT&T is trying hard to play catch-up with Verizon, which not only has more customers and bandwidth, but also now has the iPhone. The bummer for T-Mobile users is that AT&T’s monthly rates are far higher than T-Mobile’s, which as you might guess has people worried. While T-Mobile has tried to get ahead of talk like this, the concerns are enough that many analysts are warning that the deal won’t go through.
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