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.

Comments

$300 for your life

[infolation]

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.

Re: $300 for your life

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't give $300, they give "rewards" for every $300 you spend, but only if you agree to their tracking scheme. This is like trading privacy for coupons.

Re:$300 for your life

[geekmux]

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.

Re: $300 for your life

[orlanz]

Don't worry, the system will screw itself up. Eventually some smart selfless cookie will liberate this information. Pass it onto all the media outlets, foreign countries, and terrorist groups.

Put some high ranking politicians, rich people, and celebrities at the top. Generate some simple reports that make good one liner headlines. Fill in the blanks, not all of it has to be true... just almost all.

That will wake up the population. Then the regulations come in. HIPPA x5. It no longer becomes worth it to collect that information. Companies will throw it out the minute they are done with it. Down side... we will have to enter our CC or bank data every month to pay the bill.

Re:$300 for your life

[Wrath0fb0b]

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.

Or maybe we all assign different value to different things. You think people are ignorant for "under-pricing" this data, maybe they think you are being sentimental for "over-pricing" it. Some may have different notions of privacy, some may not care if Verizon or whoever has really good data to target them for ads. Some may believe so strongly in their own self-direction that they discount the possibility that the ads will strongly impact them. Some may even like targeted ads as a way to keep track of what's new in their particular demographic. These are just example mental states that I can imagine for someone that opts in to this program for reasons other than ignorance -- in fact, it's a good idea to try out (sincerely) adopting another person's mental state (not necessarily agreeing with it) just to see if you can pass the ideological Turing test in this case.

It seems to me that it's almost never a good idea to start from "people are trading X for Y, that seems grossly out of whack to me" and immediately conclude "therefore they are ignorant of X or Y". Maybe they are ignorant, maybe they have other reasons, maybe their value system and your value system don't align (it happens!). But at the very minimum we would need to actually ask the people making the decision in order to have any hope of answering the question accurately.

Re: $300 for your life

[jenningsthecat]

That will wake up the population. Then the regulations come in. HIPPA x5.

I envy you your optimism - what exactly are you snorting / smoking / popping that gives you such a rosy view of the world? If your scenario occurred and the population magically awoke, a few news cycles at most would find them back in their Matrix-like dreamland, and nothing would change.

Why not come out with it?

[stealth_finger]

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.

rewards, schmewards

[methano]

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.

Re: rewards, schmewards

[orlanz]

...they're closer to but still greater than the price you would pay on ...

THIS! So for most rewards programs, I have found this to be true. It drives me nuts that after all those resources spent on promotion of the program, websites, call centers, programming, tracking algorithms, and service upkeep, that all one gets is second rate pricing! Worse, in many cases, the rewards are based on non-discounted purchases only. So you spend MSRP on something, you collect rewards, and then you spend maket value+$ on something else. If you went to a discount website and Amazon, you would have spent LESS for both.

And then I get a little sad that these programs have been around for years which means enough ppl are using them to keep them profitable.

People don't get it

[ErichTheRed]

From an advertising perspective I don't understand why your browsing history is that useful. No one I know clicks on ads, I've never bought anything based on an advertisement, yet somehow Google and the like continue to rake in money. Until companies figure out that online advertising is useless, there will still be huge pressure for ISPs to cash in on that personal data funny money...greater fool theory and all that. The Second Dotcom Bubble is based on advertising just like the first, but this time people have a computer in their pockets 24/7 that stores a lot more personal information.

Microsoft does a very similar thing with their Bing Rewards program and if you don't watch your privacy settings on Windows 10, you're automatically signed up if you use a Microsoft account. You don't get much - maybe a few gift cards here and there. Most people don't care but I've certainly switched it off. After the FCC rule allowing ISPs to sell personal data was passed, a lot of ISPs came out with statements saying they wouldn't engage in this practice. I guess the ending to that was, "...unless you tell us you want to in exchange for gift cards."