[update: TechDirt has picked up the story.]
[update 2: Now the Washington Post and the normally quick-on-the-uptake Valleywag have picked up on it, too. Will this story get the attention of consumers? How much will Verizon Wireless customers appreciate this new "service"?]
Via Slashdot, we see that Verizon Wireless is planning on sharing their subscribers' private calling information.
What?
Two of us just received a notice from Verizon Wireless about CPNI. CPNI stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information: our call records, essentially. What numbers we called, how often, how long we spent on the phone, and how much it cost us. (It does not include our own names, numbers, or addresses.)
Verizon wants to share this data with third parties, and of course they need our permission: “you have a right, and we have a duty, under federal and state law, to protect the confidentiality of your CPNI.”
But that duty only goes so far: “Unless you provide us [Verizon Wireless] with notice that you wish to opt out within 30 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies as described above.”
I don't believe I've received this notice yet. I've been squeamish about using Verizon to start with, given their opposition to things ranging from Net Neutrality to municipal wi-fi initiatives, but their coverage area has beaten all others, in my experience so far.
Yet I'll be damned if I want to have myself and those people I have called, or who have called me, end up on some phone spam list.
The fact that they treat this as an "opt out" rather than an "opt in" is also telling of their own corporate values.
And maybe opting out of Verizon Wireless' spam plan won't do anything anyway:
"If you do not want us to collect, transmit or use such information about you for the above purposes, you should not use the services; by using the services, you expressly authorize us to use your information for these purposes."
My subscription ends on Halloween. Time to look to alternatives, I think. Too bad for us that they all pretty much stink.
]]>
[update: TechDirt has picked up the story.]
[update 2: Now the Washington Post and the normally quick-on-the-uptake Valleywag have picked up on it, too. Will this story get the attention of consumers? How much will Verizon Wireless customers appreciate this new "service"?]
Via Slashdot, we see that Verizon Wireless is planning on sharing their subscribers' private calling information.
What?
Two of us just received a notice from Verizon Wireless about CPNI. CPNI stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information: our call records, essentially. What numbers we called, how often, how long we spent on the phone, and how much it cost us. (It does not include our own names, numbers, or addresses.)
Verizon wants to share this data with third parties, and of course they need our permission: “you have a right, and we have a duty, under federal and state law, to protect the confidentiality of your CPNI.”
But that duty only goes so far: “Unless you provide us [Verizon Wireless] with notice that you wish to opt out within 30 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies as described above.”
I don't believe I've received this notice yet. I've been squeamish about using Verizon to start with, given their opposition to things ranging from Net Neutrality to municipal wi-fi initiatives, but their coverage area has beaten all others, in my experience so far.
Yet I'll be damned if I want to have myself and those people I have called, or who have called me, end up on some phone spam list.
The fact that they treat this as an "opt out" rather than an "opt in" is also telling of their own corporate values.
And maybe opting out of Verizon Wireless' spam plan won't do anything anyway:
"If you do not want us to collect, transmit or use such information about you for the above purposes, you should not use the services; by using the services, you expressly authorize us to use your information for these purposes."
My subscription ends on Halloween. Time to look to alternatives, I think. Too bad for us that they all pretty much stink.
]]>
