Verizon’s recent letter to its customers about sharing call information raises unresolved mobile privacy issues. According to a New York Times article , “…the information would not include a customer’s name, address or phone number, and would be aggregated so that specific records could not be traced back to an individual.” Verizon’s 60 million customers have 30 days to opt-out by calling a toll-free number. summarizes Verizon’s Opt-Out policy on sharing call and service activity information with Verizon’s “affiliates, vendors or third parties.”
Leaving aside the opt-in/opt-out argument in marketing circles, Verizon admits its purpose for the change: ‘”…to deliver relevant advertising to you while using the services.’” But how can Verizon segment its customers? If Verizon only aggregates the information, it’s non-specific to each customer and “relevant” advertising to each user is impossible.
As marketers expand mobile advertising strategies, privacy issues will continue their upward spiral. Consumers are already concerned about financial employees walking out the door with laptops containing private information, or theft of resume information on Monster.com
Certainly technology–dominated by the Web–provides valuable information quickly at little or no cost. However, we should never stop asking ourselves: Are we willing to pay the price?
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