Privacy Digest

IP Democracy: "On April 2, the FCC released new rules designed to protect consumer privacy when it comes to information held by communications service providers (the Commission's order is 101 pages -- PDF here). Largely designed to prevent the practice of pretexting, whereby someone poses as a consumer to gain access to private information (think HP scandal), the rules have created quite a ruckus, with early reports predicting, perhaps erroneously, that the new regs would doom the cable industry's mobile voice consortium formed with Sprint-Nextel.

On the heels of the decision's release, the Wall Street Journal ran this piece which cites an unnamed Washington attorney who said one aspect of the rules would block cable companies from sharing their customer information with Sprint-Nextel. In its order, the FCC barred telecommunications companies from sharing customer data with 'joint venture partners or independent contractors' without first obtaining customer opt-in permission to do so.

Both the attorney cited in the article and a Comcast spokesperson said that the rules seem to block cable companies from communicating crucial customer data to Sprint, a prohibition that would severely hobble the important joint venture. But, as it turns out, that may not be the case. The prohibition is limited to cases where the information is used for marketing purposes, and Sprint claims that the joint venture partners don't do this."

(Via VoIP Watch.)