I looked into these legal questions in some detail in an article I wrote for CNET (before leaving to found http://recent.io/ http://recent.io/ earlier this year

I looked into these legal questions in some detail in an article I wrote for CNET (before leaving to found http://recent.io/ http://recent.io/ earlier this year). The short answer is that Verizon has more leeway than it would if it's a cable company, and it's possible that VZ's actions implicate the Wiretap Act, but exact implementation details matter: http://www.cnet.com/news/web-monitoring-for-ads-it-may-be-illegal/ http://www.cnet.com/news/web-monitoring-for-ads-it-may-be-il... Here's a related article I wrote about Verizon selling customers' geographical locations, app usage, and Web browsing activities: http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-draws-fire-for-monitoring-app-usage-browsing-habits/ http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-draws-fire-for-monitoring-a... My favorite quote from that story: "We're able to view just everything that they do," Bill Diggins, U.S. chief for the Verizon Wireless marketing initiative, told an industry conference earlier this year. "And that's really where data is going today. Data is the new oil." "We're able to identify what that customer likes not by filling out a form, but by analyzing what they do on a day-to-day basis..."