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Telcos Waking Up To the Value of Your Location
holy_calamity writes "Cell phone networks represent probably the most effective data collectors of all time: almost everyone's movements and communications are logged in some way by these firms thanks to the ubiquity of cell phones. Now they're beginning to wake up to the value of that data, as researchers mine call records to study travel and social patterns at previously unimaginable scales. Not surprisingly, some are thinking about how to monetize that data, too."
Tell that to the Credit Reporting Bureaus that use your data to make money. My money says Telco will simply see this as gravy, and not pass along any of the financial benefit to the customer.
If you care at all about your privacy, buy prepaid with cash. They don't have any way to tie you to the specific phone that way.
Otherwise, if you give them all your data, don't be surprised when they use it for all kinds of things you didn't imagine.
Most people seem to take the philosophy of, "I'll just ask nicely and maybe they won't go all big brother on me". Me, I try to push towards the philosophy of, "Let's not give them this in the first place. Then there's no issue because it *cannot* be a problem".
Not just for this but other things too. I admit it requires a few sacrifices, but really much less than you might think. Mostly what it requires is *thinking*.