David Lazarus writes:
As far as corporate notices go, they don’t get much creepier than this recent alert from Verizon Wireless.
The company says it’s “enhancing” its Relevant Mobile Advertising program, which it uses to collect data on customers’ online habits so that marketers can pitch stuff at them with greater precision.
“In addition to the customer information that’s currently part of the program, we will soon use an anonymous, unique identifier we create when you register on our websites,” Verizon Wireless is telling customers.
“This identifier may allow an advertiser to use information they have about your visits to websites from your desktop computer to deliver marketing messages to mobile devices on our network,” it says.
Read more on the Los Angeles Times.
via Rick Forno
This is the same as Bell Canada.
They state in the story:
“Even worse, Verizon is enrolling customers in the “enhanced” program by automatically downloading software into their computers, which customers may not even know is happening.”
Any other details on this? That’s quite the intrusive thing and there’s no other info on it.
They also state:
“If Verizon Wireless customers want to keep their computers off-limits to the company’s marketing affiliates, they’d have to go to the trouble of opting out.”
BUT… by opting out, does this only stop the targeted ads? Or the targeted ads, data collections and data sharing?
Some stuff missing here and some stuff they can maybe look at in more detail.
Would you, or anyone, happen to know of any groups involved in fighting this (or will be)?
Will something like this end up in the lap of your telecom regulator (FCC) or other?
Does Verizon have anything online yet that explains it all to the customer?