Slashdot Mirror
Verizon To End Location Data Sales To Brokers (apnews.com)
Verizon is pledging to stop sales through intermediaries of data that pinpoints the location of mobile phones to outside companies, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. From the report: It is the first major U.S. wireless carrier to step back from a business practice that has drawn criticism for endangering privacy. The data has allowed outsiders to track wireless devices without their owners' knowledge or consent. Verizon, the nation's largest mobile carrier measured by subscribers, said that about 75 companies have obtained its customer data from two little-known California-based brokers that it supplies directly -- LocationSmart and Zumigo. The company made its disclosure in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has been probing the phone location-tracking market. Last month, Wyden revealed abuses in the lucrative but loosely regulated field involving Securus Technologies and its affiliate 3C Interactive. Verizon says their contract was approved only for the location tracking of outside mobile phones called by prison inmates. After a thorough review of its program, Verizon notified LocationSmart and Zumigo, both privately held, that it intends to "terminate their ability to access and use our customers' location data as soon as possible," wrote Verizon's chief privacy officer, Karen Zacharia.
Trump's location won't move much anyway.
But now it isn't. Verizon. All up in your ass anymore.
That's great, but while you were whining about corporate America Trump sold our whole country out to Russia for his own personal financial gain.
This is why there are laws against bribery, money laundering, and treason.
SHAMLESS TRAITOR AND LIAR : Rudy Giuliani Says His Calls To Suspend Mueller Probe Were Just A Casual Bluff : “That’s what I’m supposed to do,” the president’s personal attorney told Politico.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/giuliani-bluff-mueller_us_5b287805e4b0f0b9e9a43c20
By Nick Visser
Rudy Giuliani said his recent calls for the Justice Department to suspend special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were a bluff he never thought would happen, according to an interview with Politico on Monday.
“That’s what I’m supposed to do,” Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lead attorney for issues related to Mueller’s Russia inquiry, told Politico. “What am I supposed to say? That they should investigate him forever? Sorry, I’m not a sucker.”
Last week Giuliani told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Mueller’s probe should be suspended within 24 hours after the release of a Justice Department report that chastised the behavior of FBI leadership during the 2016 election. The agency’s inspector general was critical of former FBI Director James Comey, calling him “insubordinate,” and said several leaders exhibited a bias against then-candidate Trump.
“Mueller should suspend his investigation, and he should go see Rod Rosenstein, who created him, and the deputy attorney general and Attorney General Sessions, who should now step up big time to save his department,” Giuliani told Hannity last Thursday. “Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions have a chance to redeem themselves, and that chance comes about tomorrow.”
But the former New York City mayor, known for making brash comments to the press, said he had no expectation anyone would carry out such a suspension.
“I didn’t think it would,” he told Politico, “but I still think it should be.”
Trump has continued to lash out at Mueller’s ongoing inquiry following the release of the Justice Department’s report from its inspector general, saying there was a “total bias” with the FBI. He also said the 500-page document “totally exonerates” him.
"How young Donald Trump was slapped and punched until he made his bed"
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/donald-trump-fellow-cadet-article-1.3401110
My last conversation with Donald Trump was at the New York Military Academy, where we were both cadets. It was 1964, the year he graduated. We were walking together near the baseball field where, he reminded me, he'd played exceptionally well. He demanded that I tell him the story of one of his greatest games.
"The bases were loaded," I told him. "We were losing by three. You hit the ball just over the third baseman's head. Neither the third baseman nor the left fielder could get to the ball in time. All four of our runs came in; we won the game."
"No," he said. "That's not the way it happened. I want you to remember this: I hit the ball out of the ballpark! Remember that. I hit it out of the ballpark!"
Ballpark? I thought. We were talking about a high school practice field. There was no park to hit a ball out of. And anyway, his hit was a blooper the fielders misplayed.
But I wasn't going to argue with Donald. What was the harm in a little embellishment, if it helped him survive New York Military Academy?
NYMA, the private boarding school where Trump's parents sent him and where mine sent me, could be a brutal place where grown men who were veterans of the real military ruled with threats and force.
Trump's first year, under the command of Major Theodore Dobias, was hellish. Dobias slapped and punched him until he learned to make his bed and polish his shoes — things that Donald, an aggressive little wiseguy, had at first refused to do.
At some point Dobias assumed that he had broken Trump and eased up. More probably, Trump had figured out Dobias' weak points and had begun to exploit them. He flattered the major and became one of his "winners" who was favored with privileges and praised.
As the Academy's unofficial PR man, Dobias even contributed to the Trump myth, eventually telling Rolling Stone that pro scouts vied to sign Trump. As with many things Dobias asserted about Trump, this story may or may not be true.
Besides sports, most of Donald's years at the Academy were unremarkable. In his junior year, he was a supply sergeant in charge of the World War II M1s rifles we all lugged around at parade. But even in this laid-back position he was brash and assertive.
A member of the school band recallsTrump throwing shoes at him and yelling at him to shut up when this young man stood too close to the barracks trumpeting Reveille. Rumor had it that he got away with stuff like this because his father donated large sums to the school.
In his senior year, Donald was promoted to captain of A Company. Unlike other cadet captains who took an interest in the lives of the adolescents in their charge, Trump commanded at a remove. Aside from a determination that cadets in his care would always polish their brass belt buckles and keep the spit-shine on their boots, come evening he'd retreat to his room.
My friend Peter Ticktin, who was an A Company platoon sergeant, emailed me recently to say he saw Trump as someone who kept his thoughts to himself and delegated his responsibilities. "DT put his trust in me," Ticktin wrote . "(Although trust) may be too strong (a word), as I was not a confidant as to his personal thoughts. No one was. He was much to himself. A good guy, but no one's real buddy."
Trump couldn't remain aloof after one of his minions allegedly hazed a younger cadet. Ignoring the unwritten barracks rule that no report to the adult authorities be made, this cadet finked to his parents, who demanded a meeting with the superintendent. It resulted in Donald's removal as captain.
Any other cadet caught in such a scandal would have been busted to a lower rank and exiled to a different barracks. But Donald was transferred, with no loss of rank, to what was probably intended as a desk job. (He called it a promotion.)
While Donald had not succeeded as a manager of young men
If your neighbor took it upon himself to track your movements, record who you interact with, mine your personal communications, etc, etc, he would be prosecuted for stalking.
Why is it different when a corporation does this?
Guaranteed they at least also sell accelerometer data in realtime.
Verizon says their contract was approved only for the location tracking of outside mobile phones called by prison inmates.
If that was truly the case, then shouldn't Verizon have detected them retrieving such a MASSIVE amount of location data for OTHER device IDs
90% of which probably never connected from anywhere near a prison?
Verizon backing off now reduces damage but DOESNT make up for the past abuse. For this level of privacy invasion.... executive managers of the involved Telcos should do hard prison time.
Maybe they should do the right thing and stop fucking tracking entirely.
...Only because Verizon plans to sell other more profitable yet, incompatible revenue sources in the future.
The Verizon Corporation didn't suddenly realize morals or ethics.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Verizon wants to cut out the middle man and sell directly to whomever wants it. More profit for Verizon.
Thanks to the european law about protection of personal data.
https://news.google.com/storie...
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).