AT&T May Start Monitoring You

AT&T is looking at getting on the big brother bandwagon by starting to watch its Internet customers’ web activity.

The company says it’s “carefully considering” a Web monitoring initiative, according to information just obtained by the New York Times. The revelation came in a letter to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which had questioned several ISPs about their privacy practices.

AT&T, in contrast to other providers, said it would like to look into such a program for its advertising system — though as of now, execs say, they have no such system in place. AT&T did say it would most likely consider an “opt in” scenario rather than an “opt out” one, meaning you would have to actively agree to have your Web habits tracked.

Why, we might ask, would anyone possibly sign up for that?