Optimum Online Gives Out Private Customer Information for Publication on the Internet (and how to stop it!)
Overview
It appears that Altice's Optimum Online (previously known as Cablevision) is divulging, releasing, and/or allowing the dissemination of the name and physical home or business address of customers who have static IPs, static IP ranges, and/or business accounts. This allows any web site, and many other online services, to find out who such Optimum customers are (eg, their names) and where they work or live (eg, their service address), as compared to other internet service providers who (properly) do not give out a given customer's private information and allow it to be published online for anyone to see.
Note: The photo above is from a whois lookup on The ARIN WHOIS lookup tool; the same information is also available from other "whois" lookup tools which allows anyone, such as web site owners or spammers, to look up a given Optimum Online / Cablevision static/business IP and associate it with a given user's, person's, and/or business's physical location and/or address.
Background
Note: As of April 6th, 2023, after finally hearing back from Optimum's/Cablevision's/Altice's Executive Relations Office (for the third time, after our complaint was published on Trustpilot), we were informed that it is in fact possible to remove customers' name and address information from being posted online, but it requires a special effort via the Executive Relations office to do so. Thus, it appears that for now, said information is still being divulged by default, but business customers and/or those with static IPs may contact the Executive Office to have the information masked.
Do you like having some degree of privacy when you are visiting web sites online?
Do you think your internet provider shouldn't be giving every web site which you visit, every app(lication) developer you access via your Optimum account, and most recipients of your emails, the ability to find out what your exact street address and name is?
Do you think that if a cable internet company obtains your name, address, and other information, and makes endless statements online, in their TV ads, on call center announcements, and in their literature that they treat your privacy as sacroscant and have the highest regard for maintaining your information as confidential and private, that they should be held to their word, and, well, actually keep the information they promise will be private as private and not allow it to be published online for everyone to see?
Well, Optimum Online Internet (formerly Cablevision) doesn't apparently agree!
It seems that from some point starting in 2017 (if not earlier), Optimum Online has been either directly, or via some indirect means, publishing and/or giving out private customer data, including the first name, last name, and home or business address of their business customers and/or subscribers who have a static IP or IP range for anyone to see!
Additionally, Optimum also appears to be creating online accounts at ARIN, the entity responsible for North American IP assignments, using their (Optimum's) subscribers' information, but without notice to, or permission from subscribers to set up said accounts.
As far as we are able to tell, this only affects Business Customers (as per Altice/Optimum's Executive Office which confirmed this specifically in a letter (see below), but they left it unclear as to whether anyone who has a static IP and/or range of IPs is also subject to having their personal information published online and/or having an ARIN account set up in their name by Optimum.
Discussion
How can an Optimum Online (Cablevision) customer find out if Optimum is publishing or giving out their name, address, and other information, or if the information was used to create an account without permission on the ARIN database?
1. Go to ARIN's web site. (You can also type "whois" into Google and select an alternate WHOIS site)
2. In the upper right, find the text entry section labled "WHOIS Lookup"
3. Enter your IP number
4. Review the information provided (you may have to scroll down a little bit)
If you don't know your Optimum Business or static IP, you may obtain it by using any device on your business account's (or static IP or static range account's) Optimum internet service, and go to Google or most any other search engine and type:
What is my IP?
...and the search engine should return your IP. Copy and paste that IP into the ARIN WHOIS Lookup Box, and the ARIN database entry containing your IP, and your name and home or business address, and possibly your ARIN "account" should be presented. Scroll down past the "Cablevision" or "Optimum" sections, and your name, address, and ARIN account will be shown.
Anyone can access this - all they need is to obtain your IP from an e-mail which you sent, or if you visit their web site, or use Wifi and use an application on your cell phone or other Wifi device. Your name and address may now be used by them for whatever purpose they desire, and sold or passed on to other entities without limit.
Response from Optimum
Since this appears to be a breach of Altice's/Optimum's Privacy Policy, and just a silly and foolish thing to do, we tried the following to get them to correct their behavior and remedy any privacy concerns which their actions may have caused:
- We contacted business customer service, and spoke with someone who was barely able to be understood on the phone, who didn't seem to understand what we were asking, nor care that it was a privacy concern of some importance (at least to us).
- We then escalated the call to a "Business Support Specialist", who, although helpful, essentially indicated that there was nothing which could be done, and even if we changed IPs, that eventually the new IP/name/address information would also be published.
- The matter then went to the Altice Executive Relations office, and we received an e-mailed response from Tony H. (full last name omitted, since we apparently have more respect for their privacy than they do four ours!), where he indicated that our observations were indeed correct, and that customer name and address data was being published or released by Altice/Optimum (see Tony's response, below).
Currently, as of March, 2023, this is still going on, and Optimum, despite being informed about this months ago, is still publisihing and/or releasing private customer data (and setting up or allowing the creation of online accounts with their customers' data without any permission to do so).
The letter below is from the Altice/Optimum Executive Relations Office where Tony H. essentially confirms that releasing private customer information is something which Optimum is aware of and about which they have no privacy or ethical concerns, nor do them seem in any way inclined to remedy it:
...Optimum was unable to unlist your static IP address.
Since you operate your business from your home address, your static IP addr=
ess will display that address.
Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to
contact me at (833) 980-2985 EXT 211XXXX or email tony.hXXXX@alticeusa.com
;
I am in the office Tuesday through Saturday and am available 7 am-4 pm CST =
for your convenience.
Thank you,
...and that's it. No "Sorry we gave out your information", no "I'm going to remove the account we created for you and list our information (note: as it should be) instead of yours in the ARIN WHOIS database...".
Just some dry, corporatized non-answer, as if they have every right, both legally and ethically, to continue to make private information, given to them in confidence and with the expectation that said information would remain private, public and available to anyone.
Welcome to Corporate America in 2023... and is it any wonder so many people are just fed up with this?
And yes, we know, we can pursue this matter via regulatory and legal means, but should it really be necessary to spend our time and efforts to fix the obvious violations of our reasonable privacy expectations?
Like so many other corporations in America today, it seems that Altice/Optimum is aware that they are doing something wrong, and just hoping that no one notices, and when they are put on notice about the matter, they just make it so difficult and tedious to correct that they hope that no one will bother.
As we said - "Welcome to Corporate America in 2023!"
Update: April 6th, 2023
Seeing as how we were not getting anywhere with customer service or the Executive Office, just by chance we went to TrustPilot to see if anyone else had a similar experience with Optimum. None of the posts there dealt with online privacy and Optimum's giving out name/address information, so we posted a description of the issue, and within a week it was solved! Perhaps Optimum had been working on a resolution since we first brought it to their attention early in the year, and it was just coincidental that the matter was resolved when we posted on Trustpilot, but it seems more likely that posting it on Trustpilot put the issue in front of the right people who could push a resolution downwards through the otherwise intransigent corporate bureaucracy.
By the way, we have nothing at all to do with Trustpilot, nor are we trying to promote them in any way, but the results do indicate that Altice's corporate office is responsive to complaints raised on the site. Hopefully, in the future, should someone reading this who has similar concerns pertaining to their private information being available on the internet, wish to have the information made private, it won't require a post to Trustpilot, but just a phone call to Altice's/Optimum's corporate office instead.
Ideally, Optiumum should just not publish customer name/address information at all, or make it an option which customers need to positively accede to before doing so, but at least this is some progress in that now customers can call the Executive Office (and at some point hopefully just Customer Service) to have their private information removed from public scrutiny.
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