Tag: Verizon

Action shows cost of employing business practices that fail to respect privacy

Acquiring Yahoo! raises challenges and opportunities for Verizon.

Access released our new report, “The Rise of Mobile Tracking Headers: How Telcos Around the World Are Threatening Your Privacy,” an in-depth investigation into the global use of so-called “supercookies” or “permacookies” to track your web browsing.

Yesterday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission confirmed that it is reviewing Verizon Wireless’ abusive use of supercookies. This is a great step forward for mobile privacy in the U.S. and a validation of our campaign against mobile tracking.

Last week, Verizon Wireless announced that it would allow its users to opt-out of its zombie cookie tracking program, which it calls Relevant Mobile Advertising. Users can now log in to their account and click through a few links to force the company to stop tracking their web traffic. This is a major victory for privacy and follows an earlier pledge by AT&T in November to stop the tracking.

Access has been fighting the use of supercookies since last fall, when we learned that the mobile carrier Verizon Wireless had been secretly injecting Unique Identifier Headers, or UIDH, into every single http request made by its mobile users. Recently, we learned even more disturbing news about mobile tracking on Verizon and other cell phone carriers over the past few weeks. Even without this type of third-party abuse, though, the very existence of these cookies violates our privacy rights if we can’t truly opt out.

62,000 Users Rally to Challenge Mobile Tracking by Verizon and other major carriers.

In the U.S., where Verizon has more than 100 million customers, the company continues to receive tens of thousands of government requests for user data every month, according to its latest transparency report.