Telco confirms it has ceased giving user information to US company.
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Telstra went on a PR offensive after revelations it gave NextG mobile customer web usage information to a US company, yesterday .
“Customers’ trust is the most important thing to us, so upon hearing concerns about the development of our new cyber-safety product we have stopped all collection of website addresses for its development,” Danielle Clarke, Telstra’s Head of Online and Social Media, wrote on a blog.
Telstra insisted the web addresses were being collected in order to develop a “new cyber-safety tool” which would help adults choose the websites kids can access on mobiles.
The telco insisted “we needed to classify internet sites, based on the content they hold.”
However, Telstra insisted no other user personal user data other than web usage was given to the US company.
There was outrage among Telstra users over fears of a lack of cyber security on Next G and Clark confirmed a “number of our customers have contacted us over the past 24 hours about network activities.”
“I want to reassure all our customers that at no point in the development of this product was personal information collected or stored and we’ll be reviewing what we learned from this project.
“We understand our customers’ concerns about protecting their privacy online and are serious about keeping trust on this front by being transparent about the way we deal with customer data, ” Clark said.
