Recapping the basics, AT&T claims that it "reworded" the privacy policy for its Internet service to reflect what was previously "implied." What the company claims was implied is to the effect that while you consider your account information personal, AT&T owns it.

Once you've caught your breath, let's unpack what's happening here. First, ask yourself how AT&T benefits from a clearly controversial policy change such as this. Do you think that AT&T is changing this privacy policy just so it can provide data to the U.S. government for good will, or because the government told it to? No. If the government wants your data it has, as we know, various mechanisms to acquire it -- whatever AT&T's privacy policy. A legal warrant is a legal warrant, for example.

The implication is that AT&T is making a profit from selling the data to the federal government. And that profit must be substantial; after all, there are clearly many customers who are dropping AT&T services as a result of this proposed change. (Including me -- I actually stopped a switch to AT&T's Cingular cellular services when I heard of this development.) Clearly, AT&T will lose business by implementing or even announcing such a profound change in privacy policies. I can only imagine how much money AT&T is receiving from the government for all those records if they believe it's worth the hit.

Next, let's look at what this change entails. The new privacy policy basically lets AT&T do anything it wants with your information. (Remember, according to the company, it's its information.) The specific claim is that AT&T can do whatever it wants with your/its data "to protect [the company's] legitimate business interests."

But think: Making a profit is a legitimate business interest. Therefore, whatever the company wants to do with any of your information, for whatever it considers within its interests, is covered. AT&T makes no pretense about it. Not only would this explicit ownership claim help the company avoid lawsuits in the future for selling data to the National Security Agency for data-mining purposes, it basically lets AT&T do whatever it wants with any of your information. This isn't merely a knee-jerk reaction to current lawsuits, but is a profit-making venture for it forevermore.