AT&T Will Trade You Data For Doing Surveys & Buying Stuff

Wireless data has officially become a form of virtual currency thanks to a new AT&T program that rewards users with additional megabytes of data in exchange for doing stuff like taking surveys and shopping.

Data Perks is the latest effort to convince customers to share more about their consumer behavior by rewarding them with something that doesn’t really cost AT&T very much.

Users download the Perks app and then earn MB by “completing a featured offer, like taking a survey or completing a purchase.”

Those extra megabytes aren’t applied directly to your monthly data allotment. Instead, they go into a separate Perks pool that users can pull from as needed (in 25MB increments).

So if you’re nearing your limit and you’ve previously earned some data by “interacting” with “popular brands,” you can transfer some to your main account to use that month. It doesn’t look like they can go back, so once they’ve been transferred out of Perks, it’s use ’em or lose ’em.

Additionally, you can’t hog gigabytes of free data on your Perks account and then expect to binge watch every episode of Doctor Who in HD over your wireless account. AT&T caps transfers from your Perks account to 1GB per month.

Customers on shared data plans can all use Perks, but each Perks account is individual. So your survey-loving uncle who lives in the basement and doesn’t come up much except to watch reruns of Ken Burns’ The Civil War can’t earn data for the rest of your family, even though that would finally mean he’s contributing to something other than the laundry for once.

Perks data will expire if the user doesn’t verify their account at least once every 12 months. Of course, this being AT&T, they’ll probably end the program in seven months or start charging you to transfer points.

The data used while browsing within the Perks app does not count against a user’s AT&T wireless data plan.

But any purchases you might make through the app do require real money. So before you buy anything with the promise of oodles of free data, check to make sure you’re getting a good deal. If you can pay less elsewhere, you probably should. If it is a competitive price and you’re getting the free data, then it may be worth considering.

And don’t just impulse-buy something because it’s on sale and you get data. If it’s not something you would have purchased otherwise, it’s probably not something you need to spend your money on.