<i>AOL’s ad network will be able to match millions of Internet users to their real-world details gathered by Verizon, including — “your gender, age range and interests.” ... AOL will also be able to use data from Verizon’s identifier to track the apps that mobile users open, what sites they visit, and for how long. Verizon purchased AOL earlier this year...<p>"I think in some ways it’s more privacy protective because it’s all within one company,” said Verizon’s (chief privacy officer) Zacharia"</i><p>Good to know she's looking out for our interests.
They should be sued for that.<p>There is no way most customers are informed and intentionally consenting to them tampering with the HTTP requests they send to include their customer ID.<p>The obvious expectation of a customer of an ISP is that it sends the data through unchanged.
I've left Verizon when the story first broke. The coverage I get from T-Mobile is not quite as good as Verizon was - but it is a small price to pay ...<p>... if indeed I'm getting any privacy in return. Which I'm not at all sure about.
Apple's already shown they don't like this behaviour with their randomised MAC addresses in iOS 8+. Obviously what this article references is done at the carrier level, not on open wifi networks.<p>I expect them to do something about this carrier-level behaviour next iOS. From a technical perspective, what could they do to prevent this?
I really think we are way past the point where we need a serious regulatory adjustment on all of these large data service providers - I don't think any of them should be allowed to facilitate targeted advertising based on our browsing habits, our phone calls, or the content of our emails.
This is the state of ISP regulation in the US, providers willfully manipulating the payload they have been paid to transport.<p>I think a ISP that manipulates data beyond what is necessary for transport should lose it's immunity and associated privileges.
Lovely. <a href="https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-header-faqs/" rel="nofollow">https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/unique-identifier-he...</a><p>"Verizon Wireless will stop inserting the UIDH after a customer opts out of the Relevant Mobile Advertising program or activates a line that is ineligible for the advertising program. GOVERNMENT AND ENTERPRISE LINES ARE EXAMPLES OF INELIGIBLE LINES. The UIDH will still appear for a short period of time after a customer opts out of the Relevant Mobile."<p>Emphasis mine. This sort of clause is indicative that anyone with bargaining power would not put up with this. Business users are probably even more valuable to have data on, but the individuals just deal.
So I have a VPN I use already on my iPhone for sensitive things. Seems like I should use it all the time.<p>Is it possible to make a VPN connection mandatory on a consumer iPhone? It's really a pain having to reconnect manually after I haven't used it for a few minutes.
I wrote a small Heroku app a while back for viewing request headers: <a href="http://rocky-brook-3183.herokuapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://rocky-brook-3183.herokuapp.com/</a><p>Source for the site is here if you're interested: <a href="https://github.com/wyattjoh/HeadersCheck" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/wyattjoh/HeadersCheck</a>
The article just below it indicates users can opt-out but mobile tracking is such a big business I sm sure that if it actually is possible, it is not easy.<p>Anyone have good privacy resources for mobile/iOS. My phone security is nowhere near where it should be.
If your ISP really wants to provide customer/household level tracking to advertisers/partners, they could easily provide an API to them like getCustomerId(IPAddress, Timestamp).<p>It's not entirely clear from the article whether it's "Set-Cookie" being injected in to replies, or the "Cookie" header in to requests, or both.<p>Interesting times nonetheless.
Opt out [instructions](<a href="http://www.techlicious.com/blog/verizon-uidh-supercookie-tracking-program-opt-out/" rel="nofollow">http://www.techlicious.com/blog/verizon-uidh-supercookie-tra...</a>).
What exactly is the big aversion to tracking? The vast majority has shown (via actions, not internet noise) that they don't care so what exactly is the big downside?<p>Not arguing for/against, just want to know reasons beyond "i just dont like it".