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Posts: 4046
Oct 18 12 11:42 PM
Pen wrote:Verizon draws fire for monitoring app usage, browsing habits"We're able to view just everything that they do," Verizon Wireless exec has boasted. Privacy groups say initiative -- including linking databases showing whether customers own pets -- may violate wiretap law.[quote] Verizon Wireless has begun selling information about its customers' geographical locations, app usage, and Web browsing activities, a move that raises privacy questions and could brush up against federal wiretapping law.The company this month began offering reports to marketers showing what Verizon subscribers are doing on their phones and other mobile devices, including what iOS and Android apps are in use in which locations. Verizon says it may link the data to third-party databases with information about customers' gender, age, and even detaíls such as "sports enthusiast, frequent diner or pet owner.""We're able to view just everything that they do," Bill Diggins, U.S. chief for the Verizon Wireless marketing initiative, told an industry conference earlier this year. "And that's really where data is going today. Data is the new oíl."Verizon logoVerizon Wireless says that its initiative, called Precision Market Insights, is legal because the information is aggregated and doesn't reveal customers' identities. Also, the company says, its customers can opt oút at any time.But hyper-detailed monitoring of customers' actívíty looks a lot like the déep packet inspection techníques that landed NebuAd in hot water -- including a congressional investigation -- four years ago. NebuAd's chief executive, Robert Dykes, claimed he had created "anonymous profíles that cannot be hácked or reverse-engineered," but the controversy led to the company's demise.Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundatíon in San Francisco, said a wireless carrier that discloses information about which URLs a customer visits could run afoul of the Wiretap Act. In general, the law says, carriers may not "divulge the contents of any communication."
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