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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Last year, you might remember that Verizon was in the news for reaching an agreement with the FCC. The issue centered around the tracking of its customers without consent. In reality, carriers have been doing this for years, but privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked Verizon and the FCC to put a stop to it. In the end, Verizon agreed to stop tracking customers unless they expressly agreed to opt-in to the program. The agreement between Verizon and the FCC was roundly seen as a win by privacy advocates and consumer rights groups.
Unfortunately, it looks like the practice is still in effect. Philip Neustrom, the co-founder of Shotwell Labs, recently found two demo websites that would return account details if visited from a mobile connection. By simply entering a zip code and clicking a button, the site would spit out the full name, current location, and more information.
It would appear that these sites are grabbing the information from the same process that Verizon got busted for. That program, the Unique Identifier Header, added information to HTTP requests from Verizon customers and then, for a fee, would let websites see the info. AT&T has a similar plan called the "Mobile Identity API".
You know what would fix this? A few more mergers.
Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/verizon-att-selling-information-807684/
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday October 18 2017, @02:21AM (5 children)
What upsets me most about the practice of adding mobile numbers to header information is that it allows dodgy Telco 'partners' to auto-subscribe you to services you never wanted. I don't know if it happens in the US, but in Australia it's possible to subscribe to premium content for your phone, which is subsequently added to your phone bill rather than billed separately. Back in the day, this was used to sell subscriptions to ringtone services etc.
Nowadays, dodgy operators will use scripts inside ads to capture your mobile number and claim that you clicked 'subscribe' on some page to sign you up to a porn subscription. The telco gets a cut, but claims no responsibility when you ring to complain. They can usually get a couple of months of fees out of people before unsubscribing them. I kicked up such a stink that they cancelled my fees altogether, but most people don't do that.
2 out of our 3 mobile carriers are stopping the practice now due to the massive amount of fraud being committed on their customers for years, but one of the telcos is hanging in there with their deal-with-the-devil.
The days of the customer benefiting from having their number passed on to random vendors is long gone. Screw them all.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday October 18 2017, @02:37AM
Makes an interesting reading [telstra.com.au].
Some excerpts:
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @04:50AM (1 child)
Horrible shit like this makes me happy to not own a "smartphone". I think I'll hang back a few more years to see if it gets better.
I don't go naked on the internet while on my computer, why do you expect me to want to do it on my phone?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 18 2017, @05:17PM
Not like not having a smartphone will help here. 12 years ago our company made a deal with China Telecom - we got our app on the first two pages of their portal, at the same time we got lusers' phone numbers in the http header, which we used for identification in the app.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday October 18 2017, @06:42PM (1 child)
> The days of the customer benefiting from having their number passed on to random vendors is long gone.
I'm confused. When were those days?
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday October 19 2017, @12:01AM
In the early 1950s, when America was great. Remember the White Pages?