Leading U.S. mobile phone service providers Verizon and AT&T today announced a new data plan feature aimed at saving customers money, while complying with NSA rules for collection of private information.
Both companies said that recent updates to their systems would now allow NSA data collection only over wifi networks, rather than over their cellular data networks. This improvement allows most customers to avoid overage fees, which were previously incurred by secret NSA spying software. This could potentially save customers on metered usage plans as much as $50 per month.
In a joint press conference, officials from both companies expressed a desire to work more closely with the NSA to unobtrusively collect data "at little or no cost to our customers". A press release made available later in the day confirmed that customers who turn off the wifi feature on their phones will be detained for "routine questioning".
Sprint and T-Mobile are expected to follow with their own NSA-compliant data plan updates.
Privacy advocates had no comment.
