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I don't think anyone's surprised by that. Our emails have literally been used to target ads at us since like 2006. Cell phone carriers are happy to mine voice
by jrockway 1y ago
I don't think anyone's surprised by that. Our emails have literally been used to target ads at us since like 2006. Cell phone carriers are happy to mine voicemail, call logs, SMS, etc. in the hopes of finding a revenue stream that doesn't involve them having to do irritating work like running fiber to cell phone towers.
This leaves contact mining as the odd one out, but given how many apps want to see your contacts, you know that those are being sold by at least one of those apps.
None of this stuff has ever been end-to-end encrypted, so there can't be any way people expect it to be private.
- xorcist 1y agoThat's not a revenue stream at any cell phone carrier I've seen. They do what they are legally obliged to do, and while they do get paid for it, it's a fraction of the actual cost of providing the data. The state tends to drive the hell of a bargain. The service providers, such as Facebook, Google and Apple though, that's entirely different.
- jrockway 1y agoVerizon silently opted everyone into sharing their browser history (based on DNS I guess) with advertisers: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/12/verizon-ignored-users-previous-opt-outs-in-latest-push-to-scan-web-browsing/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/12/veriz... I have to imagine that the other companies are doing this as well.
- reactordev 1y agoWarmer, think of the other vector, from the data broker point of view…
- shakna 1y agoAlmost all telcos in the US sell data to brokers. Like for example, when they got caught selling location data they were required to protect. [0] [0] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/29/fcc_telecom_fines/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/29/fcc_telecom_fines/