Watching the coverage and comments on Verizon’s handling of CPNI has been very interesting. Here are a few snippets:
Verizon to share customers’ personal information – Saunderslog.com
“Alarm bells are being raised south of the 49th parallel over plans by Verizon to share subscribers’ CPNI records with third parties. CPNI, or customer proprietary network information, comprises users’ calling records and includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls and time spent on each call, among other data. CPNI is therefore the key to delivering targeted advertising to cellular phones.”
“FCC sez “you need to get the customers permission”. Verizon sez “Hey, we’re gonna keep doing what we’ve been doing all along, but you can ask us not to.” They’re not really the same, now, are they?”
Verizon sells confidential customer data without consent for targeted ads – Tom Keating (VoIP & Gadgets Blog)
“Federal law prohibits the sharing of your CPNI, but Verizon has decided to exploit a loophole by forcing you to opt-out instead of opt-in.”
“Like Network Observations points out, most people throw away all the flyer insert garbage in their monthly bill and don’t pay attention to the inserts. Hmm, couldn’t the FBI and CIA skirt the whole FISA court warrant thing and simply pay Verizon a nominal advertising fee for access to ALL of Verizon’s customer information?”
Keeping an Eye on Verizon – Ken Camp (Digital Common Sense)
“If nothing else, it heightens awareness of the need for caveat emptor when dealing with service providers. They aren’t our friends. They don’t have our best interests at heart. Choosing an opt-out policy for selling customers information is sleazy at best. It’s a practice I think should be regulated, particularly in this environment.”
Other Blog Coverage
Outrage: Verizon Wireless wants to sell your personally identifiable data: here’s how you can stop this – Russell Shaw (ZDNet)
Opt-out for call record sharing – Rich Karpinski (TelephonyOnline)
No consent for targeted ads – Developages
