3 ms·

They're allowed because the customer agrees, right there in the privacy policy. I think this sucks however, because 1. You get hundreds of pages of contract t

They're allowed because the customer agrees, right there in the privacy policy. I think this sucks however, because 1. You get hundreds of pages of contract to read about the phone and the service and billing and everything else. Who is going to spend a week doing a doc review to buy a phone? 2. It's opt out. GDPR got this right. Even if you do opt out, how do you know if they handle your PI correctly anyway? They get paid to abuse it and penalized to respect it. 3. And the big one is: there's no alternatives. IF all the carriers do this -- and why should we expect them to leave cash on the table -- then you can't shop by privacy. They're all take it or leave it, as disclosed in their PP. https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/vz-navigator-app-privacy-policy https://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/vz-navigator-app-priva...

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
Note a big thing Verizon pushes now is the Verizon Up rewards program, which is opt-in, and explicitly permits them to sell your data. So they may be folding everything in the monetizing data category into that opt-in program now. Which works fine for me, because I ain't ever opting in to that. And arguably, those who do opt-in are getting something for it. (Rewards.)
vvanders 8y ago
It's not just that, they'll happily violate a policy if there's not going to be a huge backlash about it. I remember when Verizon started booting Kyocera 7135 devices off their networks(even on contract) if they were under a "Minutes of use" data plan and offering an "upgrade" to Treos but only if you picked up a $50/mo data plan + renew your contract. The ostensibly did this because the device was "causing compatibility issues", however no other carries with the same device did the same thing. Tons of posts on howardforums but not enough to cause a huge stir. The whole process left such a sour taste in my mouth I'll never own a cell phone on Verizon again.
pdkl95 8y ago
> Who is going to spend a week doing a doc review to buy a phone? There are algorithmic methods available for estimating reading time. Taking 80% of that value (or whatever) could then be used as a conservative lower bound for how long someone must take reading a document before it can be reasonably asserted that someone could have "agreed" to anything. If you haven't spent at least some minimum amount of time reading the document, it should be assumed prima facie that a "meeting of the minds"[1] hasn't happened. This would require much longer delays before sales/etc, which encourages companies to use shorter, easier to read legal documents.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

Note a big thing Verizon pushes now is the Verizon Up rewards program, which is opt-in, and explicitly permits them to sell your data. So they may be folding everything in the monetizing data category into that opt-in program now. Which works fine for me, because I ain't ever opting in to that. And arguably, those who do opt-in are getting something for it. (Rewards.)

vvanders 8y ago

It's not just that, they'll happily violate a policy if there's not going to be a huge backlash about it. I remember when Verizon started booting Kyocera 7135 devices off their networks(even on contract) if they were under a "Minutes of use" data plan and offering an "upgrade" to Treos but only if you picked up a $50/mo data plan + renew your contract. The ostensibly did this because the device was "causing compatibility issues", however no other carries with the same device did the same thing. Tons of posts on howardforums but not enough to cause a huge stir. The whole process left such a sour taste in my mouth I'll never own a cell phone on Verizon again.

pdkl95 8y ago

> Who is going to spend a week doing a doc review to buy a phone? There are algorithmic methods available for estimating reading time. Taking 80% of that value (or whatever) could then be used as a conservative lower bound for how long someone must take reading a document before it can be reasonably asserted that someone could have "agreed" to anything. If you haven't spent at least some minimum amount of time reading the document, it should be assumed prima facie that a "meeting of the minds"[1] hasn't happened. This would require much longer delays before sales/etc, which encourages companies to use shorter, easier to read legal documents.