The tech giants spy on us to sell advertising inside of their products. If Verizon starts listening into my calls to sell me products I would switch to any carrier who wasn’t doing that.
Verizon may not listen to your calls, but they do track the IP addresses your phone connects to and what you do on the internet to profile you.
Source: PII data request of my own Verizon account, containing detailed demographic data, intent/interest data, and IP addresses of websites I had visited.
This sounds very familiar. I hope they get a hundred billion dollar fine and life in prison for the CEO and the board if they do this because they have already been fined before for this.
> Verizon is settling with the FCC over its use of an ad targeting technology known as a "supercookie," which tracks the websites visited by phones on its network. Supercookies allow websites to better target ads to visitors with Verizon cellphone service; but those visitors — for a period of time — weren't informed of the tracking or given the option to opt out. Because of that, Verizon will pay a fine of $1.35 million and will now have to receive customer permission before sharing tracking data with other companies or even within its organization, including with sites owned by AOL.
- The Verge
Underlying FTC press release
Full Title: FCC Settles Verizon "Supercookie" Probe, Requires Consumer Opt-In for Third Parties
> WASHINGTON, March 7, 2016 – The Federal Communications Commission today announced a
settlement resolving an investigation into Verizon Wireless’s practice of inserting unique
identifier headers or so-called “supercookies” into its customers’ mobile Internet traffic without
their knowledge or consent. These unique, undeletable identifiers – referred to as UIDH – are
inserted into web traffic and used to identify customers in order to deliver targeted ads from
Verizon and other third parties. As a result of the investigation and settlement, Verizon Wireless
is notifying consumers about its targeted advertising programs, will obtain customers’ opt-in
consent before sharing UIDH with third parties, and will obtain customers’ opt-in or opt-out
consent before sharing UIDH internally within the Verizon corporate family.
Source: PII data request of my own Verizon account, containing detailed demographic data, intent/interest data, and IP addresses of websites I had visited.
Edit: Anyone interested in doing the same, here's the link: https://www.verizon.com/support/download-and-view-vpd-file/