Cable Companies Lose in Bid to Make Sharing Subscriber Info Easier

A cable and telecommunications industry group has been dealt a setback in its bid to overturn privacy rules which make it harder for companies that provide over-the-internet phone service to share subscriber’s personal information with business partners or other parties.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request filed by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association seeking to overturn a previous court’s order limiting the use of certain types of private subscriber information. The cable companies, which market local phone service using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology, had argued that federal rules against their use of customer data violated the companies’ free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution

Rules Protect Consumers’ Privacy

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the cable industry, requires telecommunications carriers to first get a customer’s permission before sharing the customer’s personal information with a joint venture business partner or an independent contractor.

The FCC said rules against sharing subscriber information without a so-called “opt-in” agreement from the subscriber are necessary to prevent abuses of consumer privacy, officials said. A representative from the cable company association said he was disappointed with the court ruling, but could not confirm if an appeal would be filed.

Millions of Cable Customers Affected

An estimated 18 million people in the United States subscribe to cable television providers for phone service, so the number of consumers whose personal subscriber information was protected by the court ruling is immense. Verizon Communications, one of the nation’s largest telephone and mobile phone companies, supported the effort to relax the rules on sharing subscriber information.

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