Summary:
The article talks about how several members of Congress are
attempting to bring up charges against Verizon for monitoring their customers’
internet activity.
Verizon (as well as other service providers, but most
prominently Verizon) used a data tracking procedure that allowed them to view
every piece of data a customer accessed and use it for marketing purposes,
regardless of whether or not the customer opted in to the service. Data was
collected even for customers that said they didn’t want their information
recorded, although Verizon insists that they didn’t use data from those
customers to create any sort of marketing profiles.
This news comes as major decisions are being made by the FCC
regarding net neutrality, a wide-ranging debate that also covers service
providers’ ability to collect data on customers.
Analysis:
I'm concerned but not surprised that Verizon had been collecting data from their customers without permission. Companies like Facebook and Google have been collecting data to use for marketing purposes for years, but are always transparent about it, whereas Verizon and the other companies involved collected very detailed information about customers' internet usage, sometimes without their permission and often without their knowledge. Data collection can be a good thing (it can bring customers content better suited to them, and make service providers' marketing more efficient) but excessive or secret collection is a scary thing, as it could be used to monitor personal and private details about someone's life on a surprisingly detailed level.Policy regulating what information companies can track or store would be a good idea to prevent paranoia or abuse of information.
Discussion questions:
1) Do you think corporations and service providers should be able to collect information about their customers? How much?
2) What do you think should be done in cases where a corporation or service provider takes information without telling their customers?
I agree with your analysis, in a country like the US, people often become highly paranoid on infringements of personal privacy. Because of this service providers should make their clients aware of their research and records, and a possible solution to this would be for the company to state that they will do this or not provide service to the clientele who disagree. A more reasonable solution then hiding and denying this fact. This is where those tricky Terms&Conditions would step in.
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