There’s a lot in these new rules from AT&T not to like, but with regard to the “legal process” issue I think they had to take this move because of the legal rock-and-a-hard-place they were in with regard to consumer privacy laws and legitimate government law enforcement and homeland security actions, although you could also say that legitimate government actions would trump privacy laws in the strictest sense.

Irrespective of the legal debate, there is a really interesting implication about the concept of ownership for many of web 2.0 consumer services that we have seen develop in the last couple of years. Take Flickr as an example, their business is photo storage and photo sharing via metatags. Without questions, I own the photos that I upload to Flickr and can take them with me (copyright) but what about the tags that I apply to them? Does Flickr own the metadata that has been created on top of my photos and can they legally use that metadata any way they want, including a manner that is perceived as anti-competitive?

Finally, there is much commentary about the provisions enabling AT&T to track television viewing (in anticipation of their IPTV aspirations) but honestly I don’t see what the dustup is about this considering that millions of people don’t have a problem with Tivo doing just that.

AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn’t yours:

The new policy says that AT&T — not customers — owns customers’ confidential info and can use it “to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process.”