Facebook, Google and now Verizon are accelerating their tracking efforts despite consumers’ privacy concerns

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[Commentary] Verizon has topped itself by playing Russian roulette with consumer trust in an attempt to compete with the advertising businesses of Google and Facebook. In an e-mail announcement recently to select subscribers, Verizon signaled how it intends to compete with those two powerhouses, outlining its plan to combine offline information, such as postal address, e-mail address and device type, with AOL browser cookies, Apple and Google advertising IDs, and their own unique identifier header. Coupled with all of their customers’ browsing history and app usage, this mass of customer data will make for a rich competitive product to Facebook and Google.

There’s just one problem: This practice requires explicit opt-in consent from consumers under the new Federal Communications Commission privacy rules. Although the rules are not yet required to be adopted (and notably on the chopping block in a Trump presidency), it's hard to argue that Verizon’s plan doesn't violate the spirit of the rulemaking.

[Jason Kint is the CEO of Digital Content Next]


Facebook, Google and now Verizon are accelerating their tracking efforts despite consumers’ privacy concerns