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Verizon, AT&T, Comcast Say They Will Not Sell Customer Browsing Histories (reuters.com)
Comcast, Verizon, AT&T Inc said Friday they would not sell customers' individual internet browsing information, days after the U.S. Congress approved legislation reversing Obama administration era internet privacy rules. From a report on Reuters: The bill would repeal regulations adopted in October by the Federal Communications Commission under former President Barack Obama requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers' privacy than websites like Alphabet's Google or Facebook. The easing of restrictions has sparked growing anger on social media sites. "We do not sell our broadband customers' individual web browsing history. We did not do it before the FCC's rules were adopted, and we have no plans to do so," said Gerard Lewis, Comcast's chief privacy officer. He added Comcast is revising its privacy policy to make more clear that "we do not sell our customers' individual web browsing information to third parties." Verizon does not sell personal web browsing histories and has no plans to do so in the future, said spokesman Richard Young.
Verizon does not sell personal web browsing histories and has no plans to do so in the future
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Google doesn't sell individual user's behavior either, it sells buckets of users it calls audiences. Nobody wants to market to one person anyway.
Saying they won't sell your specific habits doesn't mean shit, they will big data you into buckets like "movie lover", "gadget enthusiast", "jerks it to interracial porn ferociously every sunday". That will get sold and you will be marketed to based on it.
Comcast is known to inject packets into http streams to put up their own messaging, they've done it before. Now they will sell that space / service.
The best lies are the truth. They already weren't going to sell your browsing history. That was never how this worked. What they have access to, and will use, is every click and search sent from your computer, which they use exactly like Farcebook and Giggle to build a profile of you to use in the fractions of a second advertising bid wars every single time you go to a new webpage. Except, unlike the two above and many many others.... they will have much more comprehensive data on you because as your ISP they can see literally everything you are doing.
Not just what searches you do. Not just what pages you visit that have little social media javascripted widget installed for you to click "Like" or ignore.
Everything. All of it. And with that, they get to win the profile wars. They become the best source of profile information for you in the advertising bidding wars, which makes them money (they get a cut of each advertising auction).
That's what their selling. Not your history, not your searches. You. Your eyes, yours screen space, your attention and time and bandwidth. So what they are saying is absolutely true, they are not, and never were, selling your history or searches.
And the media knows this. They're not morons, they're just owned by greedy asshats with agendas. In this case, calming you down so you don't learn all this and go tell your friends and complain to your congresscritters to pass real laws dealing with this (that should affect everyone and not just your ISPs, but Big Tech doesn't want that either, notice how they are not jumping to help us?)
First, F you for making so that in order to tell the truth, I end up defending *Verizon*. Please be careful about stating untruths about assholes; I don't like posting stuff that makes Verizon look less bad.
Second, the article you linked to, based on a post the EFF has retracted, does NOT mention browser history.
Third, did I mention RERRACTED.
According to the article you linked to, on one particular Verizon phone you can OPT IN to an app that lets them see which APPS you have installed. Nothing to do with browser history whatsoever, and it's opt-in.
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