Verizon Up Offers Rewards in Exchange For Customers' Personal Information (wsj.com) 74
An anonymous reader shares a report: A new Verizon rewards program, Verizon Up, provides credits that wireless subscribers can use for concert tickets, movie premieres and phone upgrades. But it comes with a catch: Customers must give the carrier access to their web-browsing history, app usage and location data, which Verizon says it uses to personalize the rewards and deliver targeted advertising as its customers browse the web. The trade-off is part of Verizon's effort to build a digital advertising business to compete with web giants Facebook and Google, which often already possess much of the same customer information. Even though Congress earlier this year dismantled tough privacy regulations on telecommunications providers, Verizon still wants customers to opt-in to its most comprehensive advertising program, called Verizon Selects. Data collected under the program is shared with Oath, the digital-media unit Verizon created when it bought AOL and Yahoo. Since access to data from customers could make it easier to tailor ads to their liking, Verizon hopes the information will help it gain advertising revenue to offset sluggish growth in its cellular business.See a current list of Verizon plans here.
They have had something like this for a while (Score:2)
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...and yet the odds of kids (under 25) allowing them to do jut that? Almost perfect. After all, what use do they have for privacy?
Hate to say it, but Verizon's already done the math (no joke intended), and they see it as potentially profitable, IMHO precisely because of this.
Re: They have had something like this for a while (Score:1)
Fuck you Verizon!
You'll *never* get anything from me!!!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone.
Where is the problem? (Score:2)
They can have full access to the VM I create for them for all I care.
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Apparently it becomes more and more a necessity.
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Could install some kind of Java based VM, perhaps Android compatible ...
http://www.myriadgroup.com/en/... [myriadgroup.com]
Umm... is that the same article from a month ago? (Score:5, Informative)
Just with more information and not paywalled?
I mean this one [arstechnica.com].
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It'd just be slow news if it was only originally on Ars, but it was posted right here on slashdot [slashdot.org] too. Same story from a month ago.
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Dude, take your pills. And I mean the ones the doc gave you, not the ones you get from the guy on the street corner.
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I really wish I knew what pooped into your cereals this morning, but ... whatever, go ahead.
Just Say No! (Score:1)
To Verizon and AT&T. They're Ma Bell reincarnate, without any of the good parts.
I'd rather have a cell phone with worse reception than give money to those monopolists.
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Did they stifle competition? Absolutely. But there was a silver
opt-in is the right approach. (Score:4, Interesting)
Verizon still wants customers to opt-in to its most comprehensive advertising program
Credit where it's due: they at least made this opt-in instead of opt-out. That's the way this should be handled, and it's also the way Google, Facebook, Instagram, and others should be doing, rather than blanket mass surveillance.
Now, people who sign up for this are foolish. But that's a separate topic.
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You attitude is that they haven't done this already.
They have.
The article just says that they added a pseudo opt-in for appearances.
I have Verizon and they have offered an extra 1GB if I would opt in. That was last year.
Opt-in is acceptable for this (Score:3)
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Opt-in is only for the "benefits". Trust me, they are still collecting and selling all of the other stuff w/ the regulation dismantlement by congress regardless of what they are telling us.
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The problem is that it will be opt-in initially, and the people who take advantage of it will be the ones Verizon least wants to spy on -- cheapskates and naive young people.
They don't really care about this data, what they want is the data of the people who won't opt in. Once they get enough clueless/careless people to opt in, they start making it a coercive opt-in -- you pay more not to opt-in. Then they take away the ability to opt-in at all.
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Try this on yourself as a proof of concept.
We won't be able to tell you how it turns out and stuff.
Don't look under that rock (Score:2)
Because Rule 34.
We'll trade you these strings of beads.. (Score:2)
Also: Does anyone actually believe that they don't collect all that information anyway? They just want people to make it easier for them to do so. At least, until things get so bad that they force people to be monitored like this is China.
Make a VM that fakes it all (Score:2)
It'd be a fun project to build a Linux VM that allows you to trivially spoof a bunch of random data to get access to this programme. And distribute it. I think amping up the noise against these things while trying to take advantage of the benefits is probably more effective than flat out boycotting.
In Soviet Russia ... (Score:2)
What's old is new... (PowerAgent) (Score:2)
http://archive.fortune.com/mag... [fortune.com]
I was technical lead for the client-side of this.
Best moments: "the cone of silence" ritual, and being deposed by David Boies.