Verizon Matching Customers' Personal Data To AOL's Tracking Network

[Lucian Armasu]

Verizon will begin merging offline personal data of its wireless customers with the data it gets from AOL by tracking users on 40 percent of the Web.

Verizon Matching Customers' Personal Data To AOL's Tracking Network : Read more

 

[thor220]

Oh yes, they sell to a limited number of parties. Then the company they sold to goes on and sells that data.

 

[Rancifer7]

Yes a limited number. So any number above zero and below everyone. All my tracking is disabled and has been for years.

And people wonder why we use adblock and other associated software.

 

[thundervore]

I only wish that I can put Adblock on my router instead of having to put it on every computer. Blocking at the router level without causing pages to hang can be difficult.

I tried it a while back with DDWRT and many pages failed to display.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Wait.... people still use AOL?

 

[Math Geek]

AOL as an ISP died a long time ago. however they also pioneered a lot of the web tracking and advertising we know today.

they never left the tracking/ad part of the web and have only expanded it over the years. just like you don't have to use google to be part of their tracking network, you don't have to even know AOL still exists to be part of their ad tracking network either. it is a very profitable thing to be part of and AOL was on the leading edge as the first large ISP.

 

[videobear]

Verizon does not make it easy to find that opt-out option!

 

[blazorthon]

Selling it to a limited number of companies, as suspicious as that sounds, isn't even the biggest problem. If they transfer the information without proper encryption, then there's no limit to the number of people whom can intercept and copy the data too. Even if we believe them when they say that aren't using the data for malicious purposes, it's ridiculous to believe that there isn't someone else using the data for malicious purposes.

 

[dragget]

Wait.... people still use AOL?

Huffingtonpost.com and moviefone.com (just to name a couple) are both popular sites owned by AOL. And yes, they still have some dialup customers as well, mainly in rural areas not served by DSL or cable.

 

[thundervore]

Wait.... people still use AOL?

Many individuals still use AOL, you wouldn't believe that many also still pay to have an @AOL.com email address. I use to use it back in the day when it was AOL with CompuServe, then had some great times in the AOL chat rooms but then moved on as I got older. I never forgot the first time I installed AOL from a 5.25 floppy way back when and im not even 30 yet lol.

A running joke is that you can always find out someone's age by asking them their email address. If its AOL there is a high chance they are 50+

 

[jimmysmitty]

Wait.... people still use AOL?

Many individuals still use AOL, you wouldn't believe that many also still pay to have an @AOL.com email address. I use to use it back in the day when it was AOL with CompuServe, then had some great times in the AOL chat rooms but then moved on as I got older. I never forgot the first time I installed AOL from a 5.25 floppy way back when and im not even 30 yet lol.

A running joke is that you can always find out someone's age by asking them their email address. If its AOL there is a high chance they are 50+

I know this. It was a joke. People seem to not get humor on forums.

AOL is and was junk. Their software was the worst bloated crap. I hated trying to work on systems that still used it.

Personally the annoying thing was all the "free trial" CDs I would get in the mail. Could have built a small house out of them.

I used AOL as well but also used EarthLink and others. Most were the same, they had some junk version of a browser (Earthlink used Netscape, RIP) and horrible connection speeds.

Wait.... people still use AOL?

Huffingtonpost.com and moviefone.com (just to name a couple) are both popular sites owned by AOL. And yes, they still have some dialup customers as well, mainly in rural areas not served by DSL or cable.

Sites are not the same as using AOL.

And most people in rural areas tend to use satellite. Some still use dial up but it is typically too slow, even though satellite is not much better.

 

[Math Geek]

i remember all the effort it took after AOL fell to get people to understand the difference between AOL as an internet service vs having an isp, that simply connected you to the web.

many people never left the AOL universe to venture out onto the untamed web. there was so much to do inside the AOL world that is was not necessary for many people. trying to explain that the chat rooms were a part of the AOL SERVICE and not an actual internet website was rather difficult to get across for a number of years.

i have actually run across a few people that still use an AOL email address, they pay something like $30 a year or something like that to keep it. (i believe it is but i may be wrong). if you had a nice easy email address i can understand not wanting to give it up. i bought my own domain so i could have a nice easy email address and not one of those crazy "jeffery.smith.cloudlover_13578@popular_email.com" type ones so many are forced to have. well worth the $20 a year i pay for the domain and the email hosting.