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Verizon's New Rewards Program Lets It Track Your Browsing History (theverge.com)
The new "Verizon Up" rewards program released this week by Big Red awards users a credit for every $300 they spend on their Verizon bill that can be redeemed toward various rewards. The only catch is that Verizon requires you to enroll in Verizon Selects, a program that allows the company to track a huge chunk of your personal data. The Verge reports: That includes web browsing, app usage, device location, service usage, demographic info, postal or email address, and your interests. Furthermore, that data gets shared with Verizon's newly formed Oath combination (aka AOL and Yahoo), plus with "vendors and partners" who work with Verizon. Which is kind of a long list of people who have access to what feels like a fairly significant amount of your data. It's worth noting that Verizon has been operating under these terms and conditions for a while with an earlier rewards program called "Smart Rewards," which also required users to opt in to the Verizon Selects tracking program. But that doesn't make it any better that this is the trade-off you're forced to make to take advantage of the rewards.
Personal data has real value, but without a physical form, the general public do not grasp a full sense of it's worth.
I don't have to print out a hardcopy of someones Internet history in order to elicit a reaction. It can exist in 1s and 0s on their computer, and they will get equally offended when I ask to see it. Other concepts like love, friendship, dedication, and honesty don't hold a physical form, and yet they are valued by many.
Sadly, the answer here is much simpler than you think. People are cheap. They will happily trade their digital soul for a "free" price tag, and don't give a shit about privacy anymore when it comes to corporations asking for data because they trust them. Clearly the masses value ignorance. Must be blissful.
Just tell your customers, let us track your data and we'll give you whatever. Why bother hiding it under some lame rewards scheme where that's basically all it is anyway.
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Personal data has real value, but without a physical form, the general public do not grasp a full sense of it's worth. It's the same issue as cash vs plastic payments. People entrenched in debt are often told by debt councellors to pay cash day-to-day, to help them perceive the money they spend as tangible.
If you stopped someone in the street carrying a thick book containing every location they'd ever been, their entire web browsing history, the dates and times of every piece of software they'd interacted with, and their personal interests... and then offered them $300, I'd wager that 99%, maybe 99.99% would say no (and probably get angry).
Because this data is not visible in a meaningful way to the end user, the outrage at such an offer is lessened.
So what happens if you accept this offer and tunnel everything through a good VPN? Will they catch on to what you're doing and cancel the "rewards" program? Are they simply counting on most people never thinking to do this? Because good top-rated VPNs that don't log anything are cheap especially when you get in on one of their specials.
I've been in the Verizon reward plan for some time now. I've got like 400,000 points. I just sort of got signed up when automatically. What they allow you to do is get a discount on items off retail price so that they're closer to but still greater than the price you would pay on Amazon or at Walmart for the same item. Anybody who thinks the Verizon reward program is worth anything is probably already compromised.
At least someone here can read.