Ride the Lightning

Is Verizon Tracking You? Yes. Here's How to Protect Yourself

February 2, 2015

Hat tip to Dave Ries.

According to a Network World article, The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a list of tools that can block online advertising companies from collecting web browsing data in ways that privacy advocates call deceptive.

Computer scientist Jonathan Mayer, of Stanford University and ProPublica, has said that an online advertising company, Turn, can re-create the history of a person’s Web browsing traffic using Verizon’s tracking system. Verizon tracks its mobile subscribers’ web surfing by tagging their traffic at the carrier level with a number called a UIDH (Unique Identifier Header).

The type of tracking, known as “header enrichment,” is controversial. AT&T stopped using the method last year.

Turn and other online advertising companies use cookies, or small data files stored in a Web browser, to keep track of websites and Web pages that people have visited in order to serve targeted advertisements. So you delete your cookies and you're good, right? Not so much. Turn can re-create one of its deleted cookies by looking at Verizon’s UIDH, a practice that critics say is invasive. It’s called a “zombie” cookie. Is there anything in today's world that is not somehow connected to zombies?

Turn has defended its practices, stating that “clearing a cookie cache is not a widely recognized method of reliably expressing an opt-out preference.” Oh sure, I clear my cookie cache just for fun.

There are several tools that can block Web trackers such as Turn. Applications such as AdAway, AdBlock, AdBlock Plus and Disconnect Pro will all halt Turn from receiving data.

Users don’t have a lot of options for preventing their mobile traffic from being tagged with a UIDH. Using a VPN or Tor would stop it, but it’s unlikely that the vast majority of people would use those kinds of services on a mobile device.

But people could stop using Verizon. Humorously, that is Verizon’s suggestion according to its privacy policy: “If you do not want information to be collected for marketing purposes from services such as the Verizon Wireless Mobile Internet services, you should not use those particular services.”

Great suggestion Verizon!

AND JUST BEFORE THIS POST WENT LIVE, The Washington Post has reported that Verizon Wireless will allow customers to opt-out of the tracking described above. Better not to have it at all, but this is something . . . .

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