Verizon Wireless Joins Web Tracking, App Usage Party

A Server Room

According to a report in today's LA Times Technology blog, Verizon Wireless has changed its privacy policy so that users have precious little privacy remaining.

The revised Verizon Wireless guidelines enable the carrier to track a customer's "Web surfing, location, app usage, and other data-consuming behaviors...." This was done, according to Verizon Wireless, with people like you in mind. Uh-huh.

The stated rationale was that the data sharing would help Verizon Wireless (and presumably other advertisers) make "'mobile ads you see more relevant.'" Subscribers are automatically included in the "all ads, all the time" scheme; it's possible to opt-out.

Clearly, that should be the other way around, with opt-out as the default choice. I don't know about you, but my principal interest in my mobile devices is not the reception of "more relevant" ads. Of course, the behavioral information Verizon Wireless gathers is pure gold. The phone carrier isn't alone in this pursuit: data-driven firms such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon are profoundly skilled at creating algorithmically-based information gathering.

It makes me appreciate a postal letter, and its still-active privacy protections.