Carnal Reason

Stepping up the battle against entertainment piracy, Verizon Communications Inc. and Walt Disney Co. have entered a long-term programming deal that calls for the phone company to send a warning to Internet users suspected of pirating Disney’s content on its broadband services.

Under the deal, one of the first of its kind in the television industry, Disney will contact Verizon when the company suspects a Verizon customer of illegally downloading content. Without divulging names or addresses to Disney, Verizon will then alert the customer that he or she might be violating the law. Disney will be able to identify suspicious customers through an Internet coding system.

Wall Street Journal

Verizon plans to spy on customers on Disney’s behalf. How special.

“We understand that Disney has issues of copyright but for Verizon the critical issue is privacy for our customers. We’re as committed to that as we ever were,” said Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe.

Taking Mr. Rabe at his word, I infer that Verizon was never committed to protecting customer privacy. I wish I were a Verizon customer so I could drop them.

Posted on September 24th, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: General