Verizon Wants To Share Your Personal Information

hyades1 writes "Gizmodo reports that Verizon is sending out notification letters infested with virtually-indecipherable legalese. In their sneaky, underhanded way, they're informing you that you have 45 days to opt out of their plan to share your personal data with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies.' That data can include, but isn't limited to, 'services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info.' If you view your statement on-line, you won't even get the letter. You'll have to access your account and view your messages. However, Read Write Web says the link provided there, called the 'Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice,' was listed as 'not available.' No doubt Verizon would like to reassure you that everyone they're going to hand your personal data over to will have your best interests at heart."

Comments

Frogs in boiling water

[sentientbeing]

Look, I know the UK gets slammed regularly here on Slashdot for CCTV privacy issues and government spying, but at least we have a halfway decent Data Protection Act with teeth. A company pulling this kind of shit wouldnt get 2 steps in the UK. Doesnt the US have something similar to deter blatant abuses like this?

Re:Frogs in boiling water

[Ontheotherhand]

I think the subtle irony of your post may be lost on the less British. my personal favourite is the local council that used anti terror legislation to spy on a family who were applying for a school place. Thank goodness commercial organisations cant protect us in this way - yet.

Re:Frogs in boiling water

[DeadChobi]

The problem is that the stance you take ignores the whole concept of barter which has been part of human existence since a guy first decided to sell apples. Only with the advent of mass marketing has it been acceptable for a company to entirely dictate the terms of the apple sale. Before, I could walk into a store and ask them if they'll sell me that package of apples for $.80, and it would be totally okay. There are markets in other countries where this is still considered acceptable, and where merchants price items specifically so that they can haggle down to a reasonable price. The fact that we accept without question that companies just sell us service for a flat rate means that they don't have to compete as directly with each other.

Furthermore, we don't believe in our unalienable right to those apples. We believe that we have the right to negotiate the price of those apples or seek apples elsewhere. Reasonable people realise that it's unreasonable to expect anyone to part with anything without a fair exchange. We would only quibble over what constitutes fairness. Maybe you're the one being irrational? Isn't it a bit irrational to expect people not to negotiate for anything at all?

Case in point, I asked a bank teller if one of their fees was reasonable, and she promptly removed it after thinking about it herself. It's okay to want to negotiate.

Re:Frogs in boiling water

[AmigaMMC]

> Our government used to stop these things, but they got bought out by the corporations about 20 years ago.

Let's call a duck a duck. It was thanks to Ronald Reagan, the greatest almighty president, that corporations got more and more power. For those who were too young to know, or forgot, banks also had a limit to how much interest they could charge on a credit card, but Reagan decided it wasn't fair and made them free to charge whatever they wanted. Good Morning 29% APR. Thanks George W. Reagan!

Re:Frogs in boiling water

[soren202]

Did you even read the summary of the article? Verizon will be selling things like billing info, technical info and location info, among other things.

Name ONE person that enjoys junk mail and unsolicited phone calls during supper about getting your windshield repaired, or refinancing their credit card debt, or unneeded car insurance.

Yours is an indefensible position. Nobody wants what Verizon is trying to do with their personal info, and every rational person knows that.

Although it's true that we can't dictate the exact cost of a service, having personal information sold to other companies at no benefit to the consumer on an opt out basis is wrong, regardless of the context.

If it's a way to have your bills reduced or if it's on an opt in rather than opt out basis, then maybe I'd be more sympathetic to your stance, but, as it stands, Verizon is selling private information to other companies with no benefit to the end consumer. There is no way, regardless of your convoluted view of the system, that such a situation could ever be considered fair or right.

Re:Frogs in boiling water

[cyn1c77]

> Our government used to stop these things, but they got bought out by the corporations about 20 years ago.

Let's call a duck a duck. It was thanks to Ronald Reagan, the greatest almighty president, that corporations got more and more power. For those who were too young to know, or forgot, banks also had a limit to how much interest they could charge on a credit card, but Reagan decided it wasn't fair and made them free to charge whatever they wanted. Good Morning 29% APR. Thanks George W. Reagan!

I'm not going to disagree with you about who started chipping away at the public good in favor of corporate greed. Sadly though, I think that both major parties are guilty. Priority goes to getting yourself re-elected, which involves bringing the most pork into your district and making the corporate lobbyists happy so that they don't overthrow you on the next election.

When advertising and lobbyists started having more effect on elections than the actual facts on the ground, the general public lost out.

Now it's just like herding sheep.

Oligarchy Only Slightly Better Than Monopoly

[dprovine]

While people will complain about this now, and talk about switching to Comcast or whoever, what will happen next is that Comcast &c. will do the same thing, and there'll be noplace left to switch to.

Since it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of sufficient regulation of this behaviour by the government, the obvious solution is for everybody to use VOIP and run TOR. But that's unlikely too.

Standard Fare for CC Companies

[SaxIndustries]

CC companies do this kinda stuff all the time. You get a letter of an upcoming policy change, and you throw it out not even bothering to read it, since your options are usually A) Agree to the new terms, or B) Pay off and close your account.

I guess what I'm saying is, I've lost all faith in large companies to do the right thing. After I saw my tax dollars pay CEOs large bonuses, I just gave up. Game's over man.

Of course, this happens right as people start forgetting about how much Verizon sucks at math.

its not 'share' its SELL

[TheGratefulNet]

dammit.

file 'sharing' is wrong. or so we're told.

but DATA sharing, if done by multi million corps - that's ok. yeah....

its not sharing, its SELLING.

orwell was right - you can control thoughts via language. give words an incorrect meaning or redefine them and you're halfway there.

similarly, copying bits is not THEFT but copyright violation. again, manipulating our words to make things not quite what they really are.

Re:boy am I glad

[h4rm0ny]

Bullshit about obligations to shareholders. The shareholders invest their money of their own free will. If they think they've made a bad bargain then they shouldn't have invested or should sell their shares. And it stops there. If someone gives me £500, I'm not obliged to go out and kill their rich grandparent for them. Why not? Because it's against the law and they didn't give me the money on the expectation that I would go out and indulge in unethical behaviour on their part and if they did then more fool them.

Companies don't exist as indivisible entities. Somewhere there are people saying "lets violate people's privacy" and they should be personally held accountable because they are personally responsible.

Re:boy am I glad

[AliasMarlowe]

Opting out was painless, just had to call a number and it was automated... *however* people should have to opt *IN* not opt out.

But then they'd have to offer you something in return, to entice you to opt in. The underhanded way they're doing it, it costs them nothing. Most likely, their income from selling customer information won't be reduced unless quite a lot of subscribers opt out.

Re:boy am I glad

[h4rm0ny]

The purpose of the legal entity known as a corporation is to make a company an indivisible entity and shield it's officers and shareholders from responsibility for the actions of the officers and shareholders.

That certainly is the purpose. And a child can say that his friends told him to do something wrong. In either case the purpose is to pretend the responsibility lies elsewhere. That doesn't mean it does.

Law, especially the law around very big businesses, is not always the same as what is right and wrong. We shouldn't allow the passing of a law to change our principles. Laws can be changed.