By Ken Fisher | Published: October 14, 2007 – 11:38PM CT
Over the weekend, a small storm erupted over new legal language that Verizon Wireless is passing quietly on to its subscribers. It appears as though the cellular provider is changing its terms of service to give the company the right to share sensitive calling data with third parties.
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* Verizon says phone record disclosure is protected free speech
At issue is so-called Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) data. While CPNI data does not include explicit information identifying your name and address or your phone number, it does include data on the calls you make and receive, and the services that you may make use of. This includes information about the features of your phone and its capabilities. The data could easily be mined to see what kinds of businesses you call and how often.
Verizon Wireless has been contacting its customers via snail mail to inform them of their intent to share CPNI data with its “affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.” The company says that customers who do not want their CPNI data shared need to call 1-800-333-9956 to “opt-out.” Upon dialing the opt-out number, Verizon customers will be prompted for their phone number, billing ZIP code, and last four digits of their Social Security Numbers (in the case of businesses, their Employer ID numbers). Failure to opt-out will be interpreted by Verizon Wireless as “consent” to the company’s data-sharing practices.
Although the Federal Communications Commission has said that it is very concerned about the protection of CPNI data, and is exploring the possibility of strengthening its rules on the issue, Verizon’s opt-out notice appears to fulfill the Commission’s CPNI disclosure requirements.
The Skydeck company blog was the first to suggest that what Verizon wants to do here is use CPNI data to offer targeted advertising. For its part, Verizon Wireless only says that it hope to improve its “services,” but give no concrete examples of what such improvements would look like. Without a doubt, the notice given by the company is extremely vague. Skydeck has a scanned PDF copy available for your perusal.
Verizon Wireless may just be a first mover among other telcos. The race is on in the telecom industry to tap the well of advertising for mobile services, and this opt-out approach is guaranteed to give Verizon a lot of CPNI data to share, an undeniable treasure trove of information for marketers. We don’t envision Verizon selling this data to third parties, using it instead to build its own analytic advertising system to capitalize on the targeting in-house. The company isn’t likely to broadcast such plans until they are very close to fruition, however.
We will update this story when we hear back from Verizon about this new policy. In the meantime, if you’re a VZW customer and don’t want your CPNI data shared, you know the number to call.
Hello world.
Here’s my summary of the world today.
Al Gore, your documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” sucks! It’s so damn boring. I get your point about how bad pollution is and how we should all be “green”. But can you please shut the F up. The least you could’ve done was add some cartoons or some visually stimulating images. All I hear is your voice the whole time. Since your voice sucks why not hire Morgan Freeman. Everyone loves his voice no?
There is no scientific proof that the pollution/green house gases are causing the warming of the earth. There’s proof that the earth does go through a cycle of cooling and warming. But who’s to say your wrong and I’m right and vice-versa.
James Kim missing found dead, and now the climbers on the mountain lost and one found dead. When you see on the news on how much effort and man power goes into finding one man, it really shows you how we value our life. Prayers to them.
A Caney Creek High School dad is fired up because the Conroe Independent School District uses the book “Fahrenheit 451″ as classroom reading material.
Alton Verm, of Conroe, objects to the language and content in the book. His 15-year-old daughter Diana, a CCHS sophomore, came to him Sept. 21 with her reservations about reading the book because of its language.
“The book had a bunch of very bad language in it,” Diana Verm said. “It shouldn’t be in there because it’s offending people. … If they can’t find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn’t have a book at all.”
Alton Verm filed a “Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials” Thursday with the district regarding “Fahrenheit 451,” written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum.
“It’s just all kinds of filth,” said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read “Fahrenheit 451.” “The words don’t need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class.”
He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, “dirty talk,” references to the Bible and using God’s name in vain. He said the book’s material goes against their religions beliefs. The Verms go to Grand Parkway Church in Porter.
“We went them to go after God,” said Glen Jalowy Jr., Grand Parkway Church youth minister. “We encourage them that what you put in your mind and heart is what comes out.” Original article can be found here.
I can’t believe they’ve let Andrea Yates free to enter a mental institue after she drowned her 4 kids in the bath tub. They supposedly said that the testimony during her case was faulty. So they’re going to re-trial her. If you kill your own kids theres obviously some kind of mental problem. But does that give you the right to be set free and enter into a mental institute? NO!!!!! I disagree! She should be sent to prision. I don’t give a damn if shes sooo mentally ill that drove her to kill her kids. She deserves to be sent to prision, tried and judged. Please God if your up there, bring justice into our corrupted justice system.
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