{"id":200540,"date":"2021-03-11T19:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/03\/11\/i-picked-the-right-time-to-switch-to-verizon\/"},"modified":"2021-03-11T19:11:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T00:11:00","slug":"i-picked-the-right-time-to-switch-to-verizon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/03\/11\/i-picked-the-right-time-to-switch-to-verizon\/","title":{"rendered":"I Picked the Right Time to Switch to Verizon\u00ae"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I noted yesterday, my family and I changed my provider from Sprint\u00ae<\/sup> to Verizon\u00ae<\/sup>. <\/p>\n

To be sure, the problem was not with Sprint\u00ae<\/sup> per se, it was because Verizon\u00ae<\/sup> gave us a better deal, particularly since we were already FIOS\u00ae<\/sup>, the land line fiber service, customers, particularly with regard to getting new phones for Sharon, Natalie, and Charlie.  (We’ll be saving about $50 a month including various discounts, and replacing Sharon’s*<\/sup> and the kid’s decrepit cell phones for free.) <\/p>\n

That being said, I have had some misgivings about the T-Mobile\u00ae<\/sup>‘s takeover of Sprint\u00ae<\/sup> a few years back, and the increasing move to T-Mobile\u00ae<\/sup>-ize Sprint was concerning.<\/p>\n

What I did not expect T-Mobile\u00ae<\/sup> to do though was to attempt to aggressively spy on its customers to collect ad dollars, but is what they did, as the folks at The Register<\/i> noted, ” Privacy Purists Prickle at T-Mobile Us Plan to Proffer People’s Personal Web, App Pursuits to Ad Promoters<\/span><\/b><\/a>.” (Seriously, El Reg’s headline writers should get a Pulitzer<\/i>)  <\/p>\n

T-Mobile is requiring users to opt out in order for them not to share data like, phone location, apps installed on the phones,  web browsing habits. <\/p>\n

T-Mobile\u00ae<\/sup> is claiming that the data is “Anonymized”, but each phone user will have a unique identifier, and by aggregating as few as 5 data points, the likelihood of specifically identifying a user becomes well more than 90%. (The term is “Profiling” or “Stalking”)<\/p>\n

What’s more, as the folks at Ars Technica<\/i> note the opt-out process is (unsurprisingly) not working reliably<\/a>, “We’ve heard from customers who say they’ve had problems opting out so you may have to try multiple links or make multiple attempts,” because ATAB (A<\/b><\/u>ll T<\/b><\/u>elcos A<\/b><\/u>re B<\/b><\/u>astards).<\/p>\n

It’s a rather depressing turn of events for a wireless company that markedly improved consumer treatment in the US market a few years ago.<\/p>\n

*<\/sup>Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed<\/span>, my wife.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I noted yesterday, my family and I changed my provider from Sprint\u00ae to Verizon\u00ae. To be sure, the problem was not with Sprint\u00ae per se, it was because Verizon\u00ae gave us a better deal, particularly since we were already FIOS\u00ae, the land line fiber service, customers, particularly with regard to getting new phones for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,1067,969,987,1066],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-communications","category-evil","category-fail","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}