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Verizon's Offer: Let Us Track You, Get Free Stuff
mpicpp points out a new program from Verizon that is perfect if you don't mind being tracked. Are you comfortable having your location and Web browsing tracked for marketing purposes? If so, Verizon's got a deal for you. The wireless giant announced a new program this week called 'Smart Rewards' that offers customers credit card-style perks like discounts for shopping, travel and dining. You accrue points through the program by doing things like signing onto the Verizon website, paying your bill online and participating in the company's trade-in program. Verizon emphasizes that the data it collects is anonymized before it's shared with third parties. The program is novel in that offers Verizon users some compensation for the collection of their data, which has become big business for telecom and tech companies. Some privacy advocates have pushed data-collecting companies to reward customers for their personal information in the interest of transparency.
It sounds like the Google business plan being explained to me like I was five-years-old.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
There are specific holes designed into all iPhones and iPads that show up in iOS allowing them to bypass any locking.
They're not "published" per se, but they're there and many suppliers of law enforcement software provide them, which work either over wireless or the data/power connection ports.
What warrants? They're already quartering troops in your pocket and purse.
I mention the iPhone and iPad angle, since more than 60 percent of all adult US citizens use those. You'd think Droids would be more popular, but that's not showing up in the government metrics.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Is that Verizon probably knows there's a market for this from market research...
After what's come out about corporations having to feed the surveillance beast, anyone who opts in should be subjected to having their house and cars wiretapped in perpetuity by the NSA with a direct feed to the FBI as the price for their nonchalance toward surveillance.
This way people will be much more aware of the kind of tracking possible (merging of locations from the phone ; with interestests from what websites you browser; with associates that you call).
I can see a new service coming up similar to a Taxi for your phone..... have someone drive your phone to where you're supposed to be, while you go to where you want to be. And perhaps they can loan you a loaner phone and forward the calls to it.
In New Zealand we've got Flybuys.
For a retailer to be part of the programme, their POS system needs to send every item on your receipt to Flybuys. They don't just get "customer A spent $X at retailer Y". They get each product you bought, how much you paid for it, if it was on sale and what the payment method was.
It lets them do things like see the last time you bought a pregnancy test and a few months later, start putting specials for baby products in the next email you get sent by them on behalf of your local supermarket. Or if you buy a particular brand of razor, they might tell you about specials for blade refills.
In exchange for all that information, you get to spend reward points on selected products.
and get Free dumb.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
They're offering me discounts on stuff I probably don't need if I make it easier for people to try and sell me shit I don't want?
Anonymised? Pull the other one.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
I want money not your carney game bullshit. Money.
(posting from my uber-low ID)
They were probably doing it anyway, and now want everyone to opt-in, so they can cover their arses before they got caught for tracking everyone without their consent.
Should Verizon change their name? NetZero did this back in the day, but with far less technology or "Big Data".
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
Just saying...
It's not like users will ever know what they are doing. It could be going on right now and no one would be the wiser. Maybe the are rolling this out now because they have been keeping (and possibly using) this data, and they figure that pretending that there is an option available will give them plausible denyability. It would be consistent with their otther behavior.
The (pretend) government oversight agencies are a pathetic joke. The recent "net neutrality" clusterfuck shows that they don't even have to pretend that customers are stake holders or have any say in the matter. The FCC is now a fully owned subsidiary of the telecom industry. The only open question is how the monopolistic spoils are going to be divided. It's no different then gangs controlling their turf so they get all the profit from the various rackets that they run.
So what are you going to do, switch to TimeWarner or Comcast? The difference is the same as paying protection money to the Mafia, the Bloods, or the Crips or ...
Nothing to see here, move along. No capitalism, no democracy, no competition.
Why is Snark Required?
It seem like a good business idea to me. Moreover, they are keeping your identity hidden and and it's a voluntary service.
At least snail mail can serve as fuel for heating during the long winter nights.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Let me know when I can get a discount in my service. I might let Verizon track me if it meant a direct discount. Until then, I'll pass.
Those of you whos mom or wife does your groceries shopping, This is nothing new but expected. Everyone fills out a shopper card it would be stupid not too if you didn't grow up with the silver spoon. So after all theses years of collecting data on what people buy what has it done for the stores except for product placement>
Jack of all trades,master of none
Though perhaps it would be more fair if, in exchange for being allowed to sell data about you, Verizon provided your cell service for free. Or at least reduced so that FinalBill = BaseFee - ValueOfYourData
At least it's still opt-in which is better than a site that states 'Use of this site implies acceptance of our policy' and your only choice is to use the site or not.
And before you reply 'Just don't use the site' that isn't always an option - i.e. sites that are needed to support one's work.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Do not forget PRISM and your CLUE score. Being forced to submit to tracking or be treated differently with "discounts" and "free stuff". discrimination: a distinction, as in treatment; esp.Ã, an unfair or injurious distinction. specif.Ã, arbitrary imposition of unequal tariffs for substantially the same service; a difference in treatment made between persons, localities, or classes of traffic, in respect to substantially the same service. A difference in rates, not based upon any corresponding difference in cost, constitutes a case of discrimination. A. T. Hadley.
sudo vi /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 <tab> verizon.com
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
One fine day, perhaps years from now, there'll be a screwup in the rewards program. We'll have a bunch of seals and sea lions getting great deals when they go shopping and a bunch of Verizon customers getting dead fish in the mail.
I'm a Verizon Wireless customer, and I'm probably going to sign up for this. Why? Because I very strongly suspect that, even if I choose to "opt out", they are still going to harvest the same data, or very close to the same type of data, and use it for marketing purposes. So now that they've graciously offered to provide me some financial incentive for it, I'm likely to eat it up. I will make a point not to go out of my way to do things I wouldn't normally do, or buy things I don't really need, but if a coupon or discount code comes up for something that I need anyway, that's money in my pocket.
This is a rather interesting business model that has only been exploited a few times thus far. I remember getting in-game credit (which is basically cash, since you'd have to pay money for that credit otherwise) in Star Trek Online by taking surveys. Most of the surveys wanted personal info. If it got TOO personal, I closed the survey. That excluded me from some "high-value" surveys, obviously, but a few were fairly benign or just wanted me to click through and read some webpages, and I got compensated in return.
When you think about it, the vast majority of advertising and market research trades privacy for a direct service. For instance, Google advertisements trade some privacy for the service of having free email with a ton of storage, and the best search engine in the world. But this new Verizon campaign is more or less trading privacy ... for money. Money in the consumer's pocket. That's pretty new to me.
I guess I don't have a real beef with my "privacy" being "invaded" as long as the data doesn't wind up singling me out as an individual. If they just want to observe trends, then whatever -- go for it. If I start getting an elevated level of text messages, pop-ups on my phone, knocks on the door, phone calls or emails with solicitations that I did not request, then I will fight that tooth and nail until the people doing it are class-actioned out of business.
It does sound kind of lame if you read the article. Fortunately for me, I'm a customer who read the offer and took it. You don't just get membership in yet another rewards program. Your internet service gets upgraded to symmetrical at no additional charge if you sign up.
I went from 150/65 to 150/150 instantly. It tests on speedtest.net as 152/164. I'd say that's a pretty solid "payment" for joining. Better than I have ever seen from any other rewards program.
home to enlightened techies. That said, this knowledgeable tech consumer says feck Verizon and the baby bell that they rode in on.