Jigyasa Prashar
According to Input, Verizon may be gathering information about your browser history, location, apps, and contacts in order to help the firm “understand your interests.” Verizon Custom Experience is the name of the programme, which Verizon appears to automatically enrol customers in, and its options are hidden in the privacy settings of the My Verizon app.
The application presents two separate options, Custom Experience and Custom Experience Plus, that appear in the app and differ in terms of invasiveness. Additional information on the app’s settings, as well as a FAQ page on Verizon’s website, is available. The Custom Experience option appears to be a stripped-down version of Custom Experience Plus, and it aids Verizon in “personalizing” its “communication with you” and “giving you more relevant product and service recommendations” by using “information about websites you visit and apps you use on your mobile device,” as stated directly in the app.
Custom Experience Plus, on the other hand, has the same claimed goal: to assist Verizon in providing you with a more “custom” experience. However, it claims to collect information from your mobile device’s websites and apps, as well as your “device location” and “phone numbers you contact or that call you” to help Verizon “better understand your interests.” This includes your CPNI, which records the times and lengths of your calls, and because Verizon is your wireless network provider, it can track your whereabouts even if you’ve disabled location services on your phone.
Verizon notes on its website that it may use your information to, for example, present you with a music-related offer or give you a music-related option in its Verizon Up reward programme if it knows you enjoy music. You “must opt-in to engage in the more invasive Customer Experience Plus tracking, and you can modify your option at any time,” according to Verizon. Customers may have unwittingly opted in to those Up Rewards or other incentives with buried repercussions in the fine print by signing up for them.
Tap “Custom Experience Settings” and then “Reset” to clear the information Verizon has previously obtained about you through the programme. Even though the firm claims it won’t sell your information to advertising and will “use it strictly for Verizon reasons,” it’s still unsettling.
T-Mobile began enrolling users in a programme that shares your data with advertising unless you actively opt out of your privacy settings in April. AT&T’s privacy center states that the firm gathers online and surfing data, as well as the apps you use, and that you can alter these settings from AT&T’s website.