Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Verizon Draws Fire For Monitoring App Usage, Browsing Habits

Posted by samzenpus on from the stop-selling-my-info-bro dept.

An anonymous reader writes "'We're able to view just everything that they do,' Bill Diggins, U.S. chief for the Verizon Wireless marketing initiative, told an industry conference earlier this year. 'And that's really where data is going today. Data is the new oil.' From the article: 'The company this month began offering reports to marketers showing what Verizon subscribers are doing on their phones and other mobile devices, including what iOS and Android apps are in use in which locations. Verizon says it may link the data to third-party databases with information about customers' gender, age, and even details such as "sports enthusiast, frequent diner or pet owner."'"

4 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Root that phone and run a custom ROM by f3rret · · Score: 4, Informative

    Doesn't help you if what they're monitoring and analyzing is your upstream data traffic.

    --
    Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.
  2. Re:PUCS? no more privacy in changing use-agreement by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 3, Informative

    VPN to your home PC, access Tor through that. Orbot is also an alternative, but you lose some anonymity / plausible deniability ("No, that was relay traffic. I wasn't using Tor at the time that really bad thing happened") by not running as a relay (which would be expensive on a limited data plan).

    --
    Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
  3. Re:Should be a limit by msauve · · Score: 3, Informative

    They have just as much "moral right" to discuss their customer's habits as their customers have to discuss their habits, as is happening in this very discussion on /. If you're paying for service, part of the cost of providing that service may be subsidized by selling info which has value.

    They disclose what they do with the info and offer an "opt-out" (may need to be a customer to view that page) and if you don't trust that, no one is forcing you to use their services.

    "Moral" doesn't mean what you think it means.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  4. Re:Now people have tags by citizenr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Verizon's the first, but watch Google

    Verizon is hardly first. Telefónica (fifth largest provider in the world) has been collecting this information since forever (and many more, they even log radio tower stats and correlate with traffic). There i

    Last time I posted this I got modded troll for pointing out naked emperor :)

    Users are not customers anymore. Today big data is the commodity.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzS83BGdWco

    --
    Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.