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Verizon Wireless has made a relatively significant change to its privacy policy, notifying its mobile phone customers last week that it will begin acquiring their personal data, which it can then sell to third parties.
Web and search browsing history, app usage, device usage, and even specific locations of the cell phone will all be tracked by the company. The information it gathers will be used for “ certain business and marketing reports” as well as “making mobile ads” the customer sees “more relevant,” according to a statement on its website.
Verizon will collect data from cellphones, other mobile devices like tablet computers, and from customers using its wired Internet access.
None of the information, the company claims, will personally identify individual customers. However, demographic and interest categories will be collected, ranging from gender, age range, whether or not the person is a pet owner, a sports fan, or where they eat, and other preferences.
Verizon gave an example of a report it might use internally, which would give information on how many male cellphone users have visited a certain sportsbar.
“Under these new programs, we will not share outside of Verizon any information that identifies you personally,” the statement reads.
It adds, however, the information will be shared with other companies so it can create a business or marketing report. Contained in such reports will be general aggregated information and customer information, including information from other mobile carriers. For example, “the number of mobile users who take a particular highway during rush hour,” the statement reads.
Even though the new settings may seem like an intrusion of privacy, it should be noted that all major cellular phone carriers store user data for their own purposes, according to a report published in August 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union.
The Federal Communications Commission said that carriers must obtain permission from customers before using collected information for marketing purposes. The report notes that Verizon saves its users’ Web browsing data for 90 days, the longest amount of time among all the major carriers, whereas Sprint only saves Web history for 60 days.
The privacy settings are automatically updated for all customers. For those who wish to opt out, there is a way to do so on Verizon’s website at www.vzw.com/myprivacy or by calling 1-866-211-0874. The company did not list a date when the privacy settings would go into effect, implying that it already began.