How AT&T’s plan to become the new Facebook could be a privacy nightmare

 AT&T now owns an internet service provider, a cellular service provider, a satellite cable TV provider, and Time Warner media properties including CNN and HBO. With AppNexus, AT&T controls a programmatic advertising network it can use to plaster ads on the web, within mobile apps, and on television. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson put it plainly: “AT&T has an amazing amount of data,” but he added that his company didn’t have a “very targeted advertising approach.” Tapping into customer insight from media properties in combination with its telecom business could be the key. “I believe if you don’t create a pure vertically integrated capability from distribution all the way through content creation and advertising models you’re going to have a hard time competing with these guys,” Stephens said, referring to Silicon Valley.

“It’s tens of billions of dollars on the table, at a minimum. So of course they want to be in this market,” says Jonathan Mayer, an assistant professor at Princeton University who studies the intersection of technology and law. “It’s plausible because they have untapped data,” he adds. “They have info about what their customers do when they use home internet connections. They also have the data you get when you sign up, and then they can go and buy more information about you.” According to Mayer, telecoms are arguably the only businesses outside of the traditional tech industry that can monitor and analyze large amounts of online activity while simultaneously knowing those users’ real identities.