The image is by Alex Castro.
Input spotted that the MyVerizon app might be collecting information about your browsing history, location, apps, and contacts in order to help the company understand your interests. The privacy settings on the app hide the program, which appears to automatically opt customers into.
The program introduces two different options in the app, each of which is different in terms of invasion. There is more information on the FAQ page of the website of the company. It appears that the Custom Experience option is a stripped-down version of Custom Experience Plus, and as the app states, it helps the company personalize its communication with you and give you more relevant product and service recommendations by using information about websites you visit.
The purpose of Custom Experience Plus is to help provide you with a more personalized experience. It uses your device location, phone numbers, and websites you use on your mobile device to help it understand your interests. The time and duration of your calls are tracked by your CPNI.
Users are not getting the chance to opt in.
If it knows you like music, for example, it might use your information to give you a music-related option in its reward program, or to present you with an offer that includes music content. It doesn't appear that users are getting the chance to opt-in themselves, or perhaps they're doing so unintentionally.
After checking the privacy settings on my own app, I found that both of them were already toggled on. I don't recall being asked about either feature. Andrew Paul of Input notes that he only discovered the feature after opening a promotional email.
You can opt out of the Custom Experience by hitting the gear icon in the top-right corner of the MyVerizon app. Under the "Preferences" heading, scroll down and select "Manage privacy settings". On the next page, you can switch between the two: "Custom Experience" and "Custom Experience Plus." You can erase the information that is collected through the program by hitting the "Reset" button. The company says that it won't sell your information to advertisers and that it will use it only for Verizon purposes, but it's still unnerving.
In April, T-Mobile started automatically enrolling users in a program that shares their data with advertisers unless they manually opt-out from their privacy settings. AT&T collects web and browsing information, along with the apps you use, and you can manage these settings from the AT&T site.
