This past weekend, a report from David Weinberger, the Harvard Law School fellow and sometimes Wired contributor, warned against a potentially shady customer service move from Verizon Wireless.
Apparently, the company was sending its customers long-winded, vague letters allowing them to 'opt out' of a personal data sharing agreement within forty five days. The plan was quickly seen as an aggressive Verizon move to share customer's personal information including 'services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info,' with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies.'
To many, this was Verizon's quick move to make money off of selling people's personal data to outside companies. But in a statement over the weekend, the company noted that this data sharing was 'designed for intra-carrier communication only,' between Verizon and Vodafone (the owners of Verizon Wireless), and wouldn't be shared with outside partners, like Microsoft.
That makes the issue a bit more clear and less Big Brother-y but it is no less inflammatory. The main problem is that Verizon failed to offer customers an easy-to-find, clear avenue to either accept or deny that request.
And for people who don't receive paper mail, this proved to be even harder: It turns out many people logged into their Verizon account online to find a direct link to the agreement, but had to go through several different channels to find the correct one. When the link was finally found, labeled 'Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice,' it was 'not available' and therefore useless.
Verizon followed up with Weinberger and told him to follow this protocol: Go to go the My Profile tab in the My Verizon account, then click on Phone Controls, and that's where the correct link is located where the customer can opt-out (or not).
We recommend people follow Dr. Weinberger's lead and opt out of this agreement, unless you want to receive the vague-sounding 'bundles that provide home and wireless services' that Verizon mentions in its blog.
Perhaps next time, companies like Verizon will be a bit more clear about their intent (and the specific steps involved) before sending out a company-wide opt-out clause.
Sources: ReadWriteWeb.com, Verizon, GigaOm.com
