Comcast in Trouble for Posting Customer Info When It Was Explicitly Paid Not To

Comcast has settled with the state of California for $33 million after the company allegedly released the names, phone numbers, and addresses of tens of thousands of XFINITY Voice customers who paid to have their phone numbers removed from public listings.

Customers can pay Comcast a couple dollars a month (it varies by state, but expect anywhere from $2-5) to remove their phone numbers from phone books and other public databases. Nevertheless, customer info was still published on Ecolistings.com, an online directory managed by Comcast.

While the settlement only mentions Ecolistings, the Electronic Frontier Foundation mentions that customers have seen their info crop up in other directories, both online and off.

The company agreed to pay $25 million to the state and $8 million to what the California Attorney General's office estimates to be 75,000 affected customers.

"This was an error that was a result of very specific system updates that didn't include current directory listing statuses for certain customers in California in that time frame," Jenni Moyer, a Comcast spokesperson told me.

In layman's terms, customer profiles didn't have a place for a "do not list" label in Comcast's directory, and when the company added the unlisting service, a system update pushed old customers' phone numbers out into the open, regardless of whether they opted to unlist.

"It's important to point out we had procedures in place prior to that error happening, but this happened because of that update," Moyer said.

The company, however, said in a letter to its customers that it "cannot restrict or control other sites and sources that may have saved your name, address and telephone number. As result, this information may still be available on other online directories or through other public sources."

So if your phone number got out there, it may very well be out there for good. The company notes that if you were a customer in California between July 1, 2010 and December 10, 2012, it'll change your number for free.

"This settlement provides meaningful relief to victims, brings greater transparency to Comcast's privacy practices and sends a message that violations of consumers' privacy will result in significant penalties," Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement.

What's surprising, though, isn't that it took a whole five years for this glitch to be settled in court—it's that you have to pay to keep your number private in the first place.