Last year, Verizon and AT&T made headlines when researchers discovered their involvement in unfair customer tracking techniques, using unique identifier numbers or “perma-cookies” to track the websites customers visited in order to achieve more targeted advertising.
After justified customer backlash, AT&T discontinued the use of these techniques, but Verizon. Although the company supposedly provided an opt-out option, it did not stop interfering even with the URLs of customers who had chosen not to be included, but continued to implement Relevant Advertising for about two more years, thus leaving its customers exposed to advertisers who could exploit them through this security hole.
According to a recent report by the New York Times, the company had given its customers the opt-out option to not insert identifying tracking codes (or UIDH) into the URLs of customers who had chosen not to be tracked, as it had promised to do in January.
Verizon customers can now opt out of Relevant Advertising by logging in and changing some settings in their accounts, since the company's tracking programs are automatically opt-in. In any case, customers of both companies can check their URLs to be sure using a program created for this purpose by Kenneth White , one of the researchers who discovered the tracking methods.
