“The recent news that the NSA has been collecting records of millions of subscriber’s telephone records shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given the fact that ALL of the Silicon Valley VC companies and funds have invested most of their portfolio into "Big Data" technology companies. These are companies who have developed technologies that allow institutions like the telecom operators to mine, analyse and utilise all of the data flowing through their networks from all devices added to which most of the operators have at a group level, people from their VC boards who influence telecom strategy.
This information is not only used by the government but it is also systematically sold and used by the banking and insurance institutions, so that decisions can be made about you as a subscriber and user based on information you were not even aware they had.
The operators are no longer interested in the subscriber, we are just stats, so services and interests of the subscriber has little to no interest or impact when it comes to the strategy of our telecoms organisations. They are groups who respond to the fickleness of the market and today "BIG DATA" increases share value.
We are the silent majority who know that somewhere under the hood, there must be something amiss, but it took a young guy with a conscience to lift it and now he is on the run.
Operators have treated information they hold on the network as their information and have essentially removed the rights of the subscriber by using cleverly worded T&C's that no one ever reads, in order to pass this information onto third parties, sometimes without permission from the individual.
The question is not necessarily what they are going to do about it, but what are we going to make them do about it?”