Verizon Wireless Customers: Take note.

The company announced they will be surreptitiously downloading and installing tracking software in all devices that use their network.

The tracking software will be sold to advertisers to swamp you with pop-up and targeted ads. Verizon will make no distinction which devices – or whose – they install the software – children and adults alike.

What Verizon Wireless is doing with targeted ads is basically what Google, Yahoo and most other big Internet companies do — leveraging data about your cyber-behavior to boost marketing money.

But here’s the thing: Google and Yahoo offer lots of cool free services, such as Gmail and Yahoo Finance. Their aggressive data collection is how they help subsidize these offerings.

In Verizon Wireless’ case, customers pay them upfront for the services they receive. Thus, any additional revenue the company can pocket from data collection is above and beyond what it’s already earning.

A Verizon Wireless spokeswoman said that anytime any customer registers on the company’s “My Verizon” website, tracing software is installed in the form of a “cookie.”

Most cookies are relatively benign, saving a few bits of data to make frequent visits faster. But Verizon’s software is different: It tracks where you go after you leave Verizon’s site.

That information is “anonymized,” Spokeswoman Debra Lewis said, to mask the Verizon customer’s identity and is then shared with marketers, which can use the info to provide ads on the customer’s Verizon Wireless device that match his or her home-computer interests.

So, by way of example, let’s say you enjoy watching videos on the Victoria’s Secret website on your personal computer in the privacy of your home. You shouldn’t be surprised if ads for women’s undergarments start appearing on your Verizon Wireless mobile device.

Users can “opt out” of the tracking, but it’s an onerous process.

By Robert Gehl  VIA DOWNTREND

DEAN JAMES @ AMERICAS FREEDOM FIGHTERS

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