4 ms·

Verizon overrides users’ opt-out preferences in push to collect browsing history

121 points by frankjr 5y ago

olliej 5y ago
Is anyone shocked at this point? All the carriers have repeatedly sold out their users, and none have ever been punished
teeray 5y ago
We really need to figure out how to turn this data into a huge liability for companies rather than the untapped gold mine they perceive it to be.
- robin_reala 5y ago
  That’s already been done: it’s called GDPR.
  - kamray23 5y ago
    It was annoying to people in Europe for a while, since we were (and to some extent still are) locked out of the US internet by their disagreement with our laws. Imagine, though, how much less annoying the same thing will be for the US. Who's going to lock you our, the Chinese internet? Europe is already in the game, American lose nothing but the dark veils that their data is hidden behind.
more_corn 5y ago
This is bullshit. Everyone who has Verizon should cancel right now.
ahefner 5y ago
Should be illegal. How much to purchase the browsing histories of some US congressmen and senators?
- moss2 5y ago
  I thought the consensus on HN was that GDPR is bad because you get annoying pop-ups on every website now.
  - throwaway946513 5y ago
    Me personally would rather have the site pop-up with an option to 'Do not track' easily available to me. If I can't find the 'do not track' option, I just leave the site.
  - beervirus 5y ago
    GDPR is good in its intent, but not great in its implementation. We can do better.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
  I guess you could call Verizon and ask their rates
  - boppo1 5y ago
    Could we start a DAO to this end?
- soared 5y ago
  That’s not how it works. Users are grouped into large audiences, anonymized, and sold. For example, your credit card purchase data is sold by visa but visa will not create and sell an audience that has less than 1mm users in it (and then gets modded with look a likes to 5-150mm users). There are some random articles about deanonymizing location data, but very much a powerful dark government level thing, and those groups have better ways of doing it.

121 points by frankjr 5y ago

Is anyone shocked at this point? All the carriers have repeatedly sold out their users, and none have ever been punished

teeray 5y ago

We really need to figure out how to turn this data into a huge liability for companies rather than the untapped gold mine they perceive it to be.

robin_reala 5y ago
That’s already been done: it’s called GDPR.
- kamray23 5y ago
  It was annoying to people in Europe for a while, since we were (and to some extent still are) locked out of the US internet by their disagreement with our laws. Imagine, though, how much less annoying the same thing will be for the US. Who's going to lock you our, the Chinese internet? Europe is already in the game, American lose nothing but the dark veils that their data is hidden behind.

more_corn 5y ago

This is bullshit. Everyone who has Verizon should cancel right now.

ahefner 5y ago

Should be illegal. How much to purchase the browsing histories of some US congressmen and senators?

moss2 5y ago
I thought the consensus on HN was that GDPR is bad because you get annoying pop-ups on every website now.
- throwaway946513 5y ago
  Me personally would rather have the site pop-up with an option to 'Do not track' easily available to me. If I can't find the 'do not track' option, I just leave the site.
- beervirus 5y ago
  GDPR is good in its intent, but not great in its implementation. We can do better.
GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
I guess you could call Verizon and ask their rates
- boppo1 5y ago
  Could we start a DAO to this end?
soared 5y ago
That’s not how it works. Users are grouped into large audiences, anonymized, and sold. For example, your credit card purchase data is sold by visa but visa will not create and sell an audience that has less than 1mm users in it (and then gets modded with look a likes to 5-150mm users). There are some random articles about deanonymizing location data, but very much a powerful dark government level thing, and those groups have better ways of doing it.