Sunday, October 14, 2007
Verizon Wireless To Start Sharing Your Calling Information
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "NEWS" @ 04:00 PM
http://skydeck.com/blog/mobilemarket/get-ready-for-more-advertising-on-your-cell-phone/
"Two of us just received a notice from Verizon Wireless about CPNI. CPNI stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information: our call records, essentially. What numbers we called, how often, how long we spent on the phone, and how much it cost us. (It does not include our own names, numbers, or addresses.) Verizon wants to share this data with third parties, and of course they need our permission: "you have a right, and we have a duty, under federal and state law, to protect the confidentiality of your CPNI." But that duty only goes so far: "Unless you provide us [Verizon Wireless] with notice that you wish to opt out within 30 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies as described above."
Wow. It is unbelievable to me that Verizon, or any carrier, would just change the terms of your contract like this unless you proactively opt-out of the new process. If you are on Verizon Wireless and you got this notice, be sure to understand exactly what they are going to be sharing with whomever they deem an "authorized company." If you, like many others, just tossed this notice out when you got your bill recently, the link above has an online scanned copy of it so you'll know how to opt out.
Personally, I think any new policy that anyone comes up with that shares personal information of any sort should be required to be opt-in only. Opt-out should be banned.
"Two of us just received a notice from Verizon Wireless about CPNI. CPNI stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information: our call records, essentially. What numbers we called, how often, how long we spent on the phone, and how much it cost us. (It does not include our own names, numbers, or addresses.) Verizon wants to share this data with third parties, and of course they need our permission: "you have a right, and we have a duty, under federal and state law, to protect the confidentiality of your CPNI." But that duty only goes so far: "Unless you provide us [Verizon Wireless] with notice that you wish to opt out within 30 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies as described above."
Wow. It is unbelievable to me that Verizon, or any carrier, would just change the terms of your contract like this unless you proactively opt-out of the new process. If you are on Verizon Wireless and you got this notice, be sure to understand exactly what they are going to be sharing with whomever they deem an "authorized company." If you, like many others, just tossed this notice out when you got your bill recently, the link above has an online scanned copy of it so you'll know how to opt out.
Personally, I think any new policy that anyone comes up with that shares personal information of any sort should be required to be opt-in only. Opt-out should be banned.
