skydeck

Get Ready For More Advertising On Your Cell Phone

Posted by Jason on Oct 11, 2007 in Mobile Market, Public Policy  |  Comments (61)  |  Share 

Two of us just received a notice from Verizon Wireless about CPNI. CPNI stands for Customer Proprietary Network Information: our call records, essentially. What numbers we called, how often, how long we spent on the phone, and how much it cost us. (It does not include our own names, numbers, or addresses.)

Verizon wants to share this data with third parties, and of course they need our permission: “you have a right, and we have a duty, under federal and state law, to protect the confidentiality of your CPNI.”

But that duty only goes so far: “Unless you provide us [Verizon Wireless] with notice that you wish to opt out within 30 days of receiving this letter, we will assume that you give the Verizon Companies the right to share your CPNI with the authorized companies as described above.”

Who are the authorized companies? “Our affiliates, agents and parent companies (including Vodafone) and their subsidiaries.”

That’s a pretty broad list. Agents could include anyone that Verizon hires, which becomes clear when you reach the bottom of page 8: “we may include our own or third-party advertising in the services you’ve purchased from us, and we may share information about you [information here includes CPNI] with affiliates, vendors and third parties to … deliver relevant advertising to you while using the services. We may collect and transmit information regarding your use of the services through applications or other software present on your device. If you do not want us to collect, transmit or use such information about you for the above purposes, you should not use the services; by using the services, you expressly authorize us to use your information for these purposes.”

I called 1-800-333-9956 and opted out of sharing CPNI. That last paragraph seems to imply that I have to stop using my phone as well. It’s not clear.

We have no objection to advertising at Skydeck, on the web or on phones. If ads on phones mean more services for a lower price, that could be good for everybody. Services like GMail deliver advertising based on the actual content of your email, not just metadata.

But there was a lot of debate about GMail. We wonder how many people got this notice in the mail last week and trashed it without realizing that by doing so they were giving Verizon Wireless permission to share their call records with marketing companies?

We can’t find the notice online, so here’s a scanned copy.

For more on CPNI, visit the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

UPDATE: The document has two parts. The first is headed Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice. It asks permission to share CPNI among ‘affiliates, agents and parent companies’ and states that you can opt out of information sharing at any time. Great, but as we said before, ‘agent’ is a very broad term.

The second part of the document – headed Customer Agreement Terms and Conditions – is a new contract between you and Verizon Wireless. It applies to new customers and to existing customers who go on using the service ‘after making any change or addition when we’ve told you that the change or addition requires acceptance’, i.e. you don’t have to accept the agreement until … you have to accept the agreement. It’s the new agreement that mentions advertising explicitly (as opposed to ‘agents’, which could include ad networks) and it implies that there is no way to opt out of sharing information: if you don’t want Verizon Wireless to share information about you, ‘YOU SHOULD NOT USE THE SERVICES.’ So the two parts of the document seem to contradict each other.

VZW’s right to share information is one of several sections that survive the termination of the agreement. We like that those sections are marked with the symbol for infinity.

Disclaimer: we are not lawyers. Do read it yourself.

UPDATE 2: Kudos to the Consumerist for highlighting this issue over a month ago.

Here’s the relevant section from the new Terms and Conditions (which are printed alongside the actual CPNI notice on the same piece of paper):

Your Privacy – IMPORTANT INFORMATION – PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BEFORE MAKING YOUR PURCHASE DECISION
∞ In the course of providing services to you, we may collect certain information that is made available to us solely by virtue of our relationship with you, such as information about the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, and amount of use of the telecommunications services you purchase. This information and related billing information is known as Customer Proprietary Network Information, or CPNI. (CPNI does not include your name, address, and wireless telephone number.) Further, except as provided in this agreement, we won’t intentionally share personal information about you without your permission. WE MAY USE AND SHARE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU AND HOW YOU USE THE SERVICES: (A) SO WE CAN PROVIDE OUR GOODS AND SERVICES; (B) SO OTHERS CAN PROVIDE GOODS OR SERVICES TO US, OR TO YOU ON OUR BEHALF; (C) SO WE OR OUR AFFILIATES CAN COMMUNICATE WITH YOU ABOUT GOODS OR SERVICES THAT ANY OF US OFFER (ALTHOUGH YOU CAN CALL US ANY TIME IF YOU DON’T WANT US TO DO THIS); (D) TO PROTECT OURSELVES; OR (E) AS REQUIRED BY LAW, LEGAL PROCESS, OR EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES. IN ADDITION, WE MAY INCLUDE OUR OWN OR THIRD-PARTY ADVERTISING IN THE SERVICES YOU’VE PURCHASED FROM US, AND WE MAY SHARE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU WITH AFFILIATES, VENDORS AND THIRD PARTIES TO, IN ADDITION TO THE ABOVE REASONS, DELIVER RELEVANT ADVERTISING TO YOU WHILE USING THE SERVICES. WE MAY COLLECT AND TRANSMIT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES THROUGH APPLICATIONS OR OTHER SOFTWARE PRESENT ON YOUR DEVICE. IF YOU DO NOT WANT US TO COLLECT, TRANSMIT OR USE SUCH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU FOR THE ABOVE PURPOSES, YOU SHOULD NOT USE THE SERVICES; BY USING THE SERVICES, YOU EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZE US TO USE YOUR INFORMATION FOR THESE PURPOSES.

We read this as saying that Verizon Wireless has the right to share CPNI with advertisers.

It also seems that the two parts of the document – the CPNI notice and the Ts&Cs – do not contradict each other after all. According to clause (C) above, you can only opt out of sharing your CPNI with Verizon affiliates. You cannot block Verizon Wireless from sharing information in any of the other scenarios described; you can only choose not to use the services.

Again, that’s our reading. Tell us what we are missing.

UPDATE 3: The New York Times covers the story today. Note the last line: “We do not use C.P.N.I. currently for mobile advertising.” Yes, but the new agreement appears to give Verizon Wireless the right to do so in the future.