>>23433194

AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas.[4] It is the world's third largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest wireless carrier in the United States behind T-Mobile and Verizon.[5] As of 2023, AT&T was ranked 32nd on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations, with revenues of $122.4 billion.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

Political involvement

According to OpenSecrets, AT&T was the fourteenth-largest donor to United States federal political campaigns and committees from 1989 to 2019,[117] having contributed more than US$84.1 million, 42% of which went to Republicans and 58% of which went to Democrats. In 2005, AT&T was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.[118][119][120] Bill Leahy, representing AT&T, sits on the Private Enterprise Board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).[121] ALEC is a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives that drafts and shares model state-level legislation for distribution among state governments in the United States.[122][123][124]

During the period of 1998 to 2019, the company expended US$380.1 million on lobbying in the United States.[125] A key political issue for AT&T has been the question of which businesses win the right to profit by providing broadband internet access in the United States.[126] The company has also lobbied in support of several federal bills. AT&T supported the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2013 (H.R. 3675; 113th Congress), a bill that would make a number of changes to procedures that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follows in its rulemaking processes.[127] The FCC would have to act in a more transparent way as a result of this bill, forced to accept public input about regulations.[128] AT&T's Executive Vice President of Federal Relations, Tim McKone, said that the bill's "much needed institutional reforms will help arm the agency with the tools to keep pace with the Internet speed of today's marketplace. It will also ensure that outmoded regulatory practices for today's competitive marketplace are properly placed in the dustbin of history."[129]

In May 2018, reports emerged that AT&T made 12 monthly payments between January and December 2017 to Essential Consultants, a company set up by President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, totaling $600,000.[130] Although initial reports on May 8 mentioned only four monthly payments totaling $200,000,[131] documents obtained by the Washington Post on May 10 confirmed the figure of 12 payments, which had begun three days after the President was sworn into office.[132][133] AT&T confirmed the report the same day.[134] The report from The Washington Post, as well as additional reporting from Bloomberg, revealed the payments had been made for Cohen to "provide guidance" relating to the attempted $85 billion merger with Time Warner,[132][133] to gain information on the Trump administration's planned tax reforms, as well as about potential changes to net neutrality policies under the new FCC.[135] Chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai denied Cohen ever inquired about net neutrality on AT&T's behalf.[134][136] A spokesperson for AT&T said that the company had been contacted by the Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller regarding the payments, and had provided all the information requested in November and December 2017.[137][138]

In early 2019, the Democratic House Judiciary requested records related to the AT&T-Time Warner merger from the White House.[139]

While it has expressed support for LGBTQ causes, AT&T has also donated to sponsors of anti-transgender legislation in several US states, especially those predominantly Republican-governed, including Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas and Florida.[140][141][142]

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Criticism and controversies

Hemisphere Project

The company maintains a database of call detail records of all telephone calls that have passed through its network since 1987. AT&T employees work at High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area offices (operated by the Office of National Drug Control Policy) in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Houston so data can be quickly turned over to law enforcement agencies. Records are requested via an administrative subpoena, without the involvement of a court or grand jury.

Censorship

In September 2007, AT&T changed its legal policy to state that "AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice for conduct that AT&T believes … (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries."[161] By October 10, 2007, AT&T had altered the terms and conditions for its Internet service to explicitly support freedom of expression by its subscribers, after an outcry claiming the company had given itself the right to censor its subscribers' transmissions.[162]

Privacy controversy

Further information: MAINWAY, Room 641A, Mark Klein, NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, and Hepting v. AT&T

Diagram of how alleged wiretapping worked, from EFF court filings[163]

In 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation lodged the class action lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T, which alleged that AT&T had allowed agents of the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor phone and Internet communications of AT&T customers without warrants. If true, this would violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. AT&T has yet to confirm or deny that monitoring by the NSA is occurring. In April 2006, retired former AT&T technician Mark Klein lodged an affidavit supporting this allegation.[164][165] The US Department of Justice stated it would intervene in this lawsuit by means of State Secrets Privilege.[166]

In July 2006, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California – in which the suit was filed – rejected a federal government motion to dismiss the case. The motion to dismiss, which invoked the State Secrets Privilege, had argued that any court review of the alleged partnership between the federal government and AT&T would harm national security. The case was immediately appealed to the Ninth Circuit. It was dismissed on June 3, 2009, citing retroactive legislation in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.[167][168]

In May 2006, USA Today reported that all international and domestic calling records had been handed over to the National Security Agency by AT&T, Verizon, SBC, and BellSouth for the purpose of creating a massive calling database.[169] The portions of the new AT&T that had been part of SBC Communications before November 18, 2005, were not mentioned.

On June 21, 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that AT&T had rewritten rules on its privacy policy. The policy, which took effect June 23, 2006, 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.'"[170]

On August 22, 2007, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell confirmed that AT&T was one of the telecommunications companies that assisted with the government's warrantless wire-tapping program on calls between foreign and domestic sources.[171]

On November 8, 2007, Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician, told Keith Olbermann of MSNBC that all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office – to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access.[172]

AT&T keeps for five to seven years a record of who text messages whom and the date and time, but not the content of the messages.[173]

AT&T has a one star privacy rating from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.[174]

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Copyright enforcement

In January 2008, reports emerged that the company planned to begin filtering all Internet traffic which passed through its network for intellectual property violations.[175] Media commentators speculated that if this plan was implemented, it would have led to a mass exodus of subscribers from AT&T,[176] although Internet traffic of non-subscribers may have gone through the company's network anyway.[175] Internet freedom proponents used these developments as justification for government-mandated network neutrality.

Under AT&T's current copyright enforcement program, content owners may notify AT&T when they allege unlawful sharing of material. The program is based on IP addresses visible to content owners in peer-to-peer networks, not on filtering. AT&T has terminated the broadband service of some customers accused of copyright infringement.[177]

Discrimination against local public-access television channels

In 2009 AT&T was accused by community media groups of discriminating against local public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable TV channels, by "impictions that will severely restrict the audience".[178]

According to Barbara Popovic, executive director of the Chicago public-access service CAN-TV, the new AT&T U-verse system forced all Public-access television into a special menu system, denying normal functionality such as channel numbers, access to the standard program guide, and DVR recording.[178] The Ratepayer Advocates division of the California Public Utilities Commission reported: "Instead of putting the stations on individual channels, AT&T has bundled community stations into a generic channel that can only be navigated through a complex and lengthy process."[178]

Sue Buske (president of telecommunications consulting firm the Buske Group and a former head of the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers/Alliance for Community Media) argue that this is "an overall attack […] on public access across the [United States], the place in the dial around cities and communities where people can make their own media in their own communities".[178]

Information security

In June 2010, a hacker group known as Goatse Security discovered a vulnerability within AT&T that could allow anyone to uncover email addresses belonging to customers of AT&T 3G service for the Apple iPad.[179] These email addresses could be accessed without a protective password.[180] Using a script, Goatse Security collected thousands of email addresses from AT&T.[179] Goatse Security informed AT&T about the security flaw through a third party.[181] Goatse Security then disclosed around 114,000 of these emails to Gawker Media, which published an article about the security flaw and disclosure in Valleywag.[179][181] Praetorian Security Group criticized the web application that Goatse Security exploited as "poorly designed".[179]

In April 2015, AT&T was fined $25 million over data security breaches, marking the largest ever fine issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for breaking data privacy laws. The investigation revealed the theft of details of approximately 280,000 people from call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines.[182][183]

In March 2024, AT&T confirmed the 2021 leak of contact information for over 7.6 million current users, as well as 65 million former ones. The leaked records may contain "full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number and passcode".[184] Multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed as a result of this.[185][186]

In July 2024, the company stated it experienced a new breach, the largest to date. The company is expected to notify around 110 million customers who were affected.[187]

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Accusations of enabling fraud

In March 2012, the United States federal government announced a lawsuit against AT&T. The specific accusations state that AT&T "violated the False Claims Act by facilitating and seeking federal payment for IP Relay calls by international callers who were ineligible for the service and sought to use it for fraudulent purposes. The complaint alleges that, out of fears that fraudulent call volume would drop after the registration deadline, AT&T knowingly adopted a non-compliant registration system that did not verify whether the user was located within the United States. The complaint further contends that AT&T continued to employ this system even with the knowledge that it facilitated the use of IP Relay by fraudulent foreign callers, which accounted for up to 95 percent of AT&T's call volume. The government's complaint alleges that AT&T improperly billed the TRS Fund for reimbursement of these calls and received millions of dollars in federal payments as a result."[188] In 2013, AT&T entered into a consent decree with the FCC and paid a total of $21.75 million.[189]

Aaron Slator controversy

On April 28, 2015, AT&T announced that it had fired Aaron Slator, President of Content and Advertising Sales, for sending text messages critics described as racist.[190] African-American employee Knoyme King filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against Slator.[191] The day before that, protesters arrived at AT&T's headquarters in Dallas and its satellite offices in Los Angeles as well as at the home of CEO Randall Stephenson to protest alleged systemic racial policies. According to accounts, the protesters demanded that AT&T begin working with 100% black-owned media companies.[192]

On January 24, 2017, Slator sued AT&T in the Los Angeles Superior Court, accusing the company of defamation and wrongful termination. Slator had been involved in organizing AT&T's planned $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV since 2014, and he claimed that when news headlines speculated that his text messages could prevent the acquisition from going through, he was fired as a "scapegoat" by company executives. He also claimed that the executives had known about the text messages since at least late 2013, and had promised him at the time that he would not be fired for them.[193][194] The company stood by its decision to terminate Slator.[195]

Overcharging government agencies

In 2020 AT&T paid out $48 million to settle a lawsuit with 30 government entities. The suit (under the California False Claims Act) related to contractual undertakings to provide services at "the lowest cost available". AT&T denied any wrongdoing in the matter.[196]