Verizon has a change of heart about its indestructible tracking cookies, opting out will remove them completely

Wireless carriers have long been collectors and aggregators of consumer data. The information not only allows the carriers to understand how its products and features are used, but it is also used for selling advertising, and developing targeted marketing programs.

For its part, Verizon’s practice of tracking and gathering customer usage was more pervasive than other programs. Even AT&T, who ran a similar trial utilizing “undeletable” cookies to measure usage information, ended its program last year.

Verizon utilized hidden tracking identifiers that could not be disabled, whether the consumer was part of the Big Red’s rewards program, called Verizon Select, or opted out of it and its whole marketing apparatus.  For those that opted-out, the data simply was not shared, but it was still gathered.  The unique identifying headers (x-UIDH) codes were still inserted into the data traffic and followed the customer everywhere except through Wi-Fi and VPN channels.

Privacy advocates were naturally concerned about how these unique headers might be exploited. Verizon assured everyone that was not the case, but as it happened, at least one company was able to piggyback its own tracking code on Verizon’s unique headers.

With that news getting in the way of things, now Verizon says it will soon make available a method for customers to not only opt-out of the data tracking, but that it would make sure that such decisions by a customer would also remove the x-UIDH codes from data traffic altogether.

via: Ars Technica

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