Attention Verizon Wireless customers: “Custom Experience” is a new setting allowing Verizon to mine your mobile activity to feed its surveillance ads business effectively ripping off publishers, too. Even if you turn off the on-by-default setting they’ll text you again. /1
None of this would be possible under the FCC privacy rules passed in 2016 that were then thrown out in first few months of new administration. Google and adtech also opposed them as they were worried about a “slippery slope” impacting their own surveillance ads businesses. /2
I wrote a number of op-eds about all of this back in 2014-2016. Same issue continues to exist when companies acting as “gatekeepers” leverage their market power to force or trick users into accepting their surveillance advertising business models which most users don’t want. /3
All this matters to consumer trust and undermines the economics of publishers. If Verizon can monetize your browsing activity without having to pay the companies who operate the sites and apps you actually choose to browse… they’re effectively acting like Facebook and Google. /4
Here is a report by @strawberrywell at @verge on recently launched Verizon wireless program which unlike apple ios14.5+ doesn’t by default give users a simple and easy opportunity to choose not to be tracked and stay off by default. /5 theverge.com/2021/12/17/228…
Here is a super smart 2017 Politico report (which much of press missed as it happened) on why you can thank Google, Facebook and the adtech complex for making this Verizon surveillance advertising possible five years later. /6 politico.com/story/2017/03/…
Here is one of the op-eds I wrote as this was all going down. And yes it’s remarkable it took Verizon this long to execute on it. Seems pretty clear they didn’t need to until after Apple rolled out its tracking prevention. End of thread. /7 vox.com/2016/11/21/136…
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More from @jason_kint

24 Dec 21
and because one Facebook lawsuit as the world turns to xmas eve isn't enough, the AG of Washington DC has his lawsuit for FB's cover-up of Cambridge Analytica and just filed reply to FB fighting Mark Zuckerberg being personally named in the suit. /1
"he 'personally participated' in the company's tortious conduct" hints at the newly discovered evidence that caused the AG's office to personally add Mark Zuckerberg to the lawsuit. Facebook paid the FTC $5 billion supposedly to avoid Zuckerberg being added to its lawsuit. /2
this is first time I've seen these exact words in a court doc, "his [Mark Zuckerberg] role in covering up Cambridge Analytica when Facebook first discovered it in 2015." This all gets to timeline where Zuckerberg's testimony and Facebook's failure to answer Parliament. /3
Read 5 tweets
24 Dec 21
facebook's fraud lawsuit for inflating its claimed reach for advertisers just posted 95 files (3,646 pages!) - including a lot of the evidence dcn pushed to unseal. includes internal email threads behind prior claims. looks damning. will link to prior threads in a bit. /1
In the thousands of pages, we learn Publicis in France was especially concerned suggesting clients significantly reduce spend leading to their largest client, P&G, supposedly ceasing all spend. They estimated differences of 40-50% in claimed reach vs census in certain targets. /2
We also see Alex Schultz (now CMO) breaking down the source of inflated reach which follow-up docs show he accurately assessed as mostly due to #2 - lying about age and #3 - fake and duplicate accounts. Both listed as "millions" of the inflation... /3
Read 17 tweets
23 Dec 21
Thankfully northern Virginia hasn’t been a very interesting case study on Covid but I worry it’s about to be one. Heavily vaccinated with cases going vertical hockey sticking the last few weeks. /1
It’s so very odd to see Alexandria and Arlington near the top of the cases per capita charts for Virginia after eighteen months of this. So-early on quarantining, masks, vax and double-vaxed albeit majority not yet boosted (important). /2
I hear the White House leaning heavily into the lower hospitalization per infection rate but not sure public grasps reports indicating omicron penetrating double-vaxed and reinfects easier so the denominator is larger with people protected from serious outcomes. /3
Read 5 tweets
21 Dec 21
!!! As I mentioned last week, ND Cal court ordered unsealing of motion to compel Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg for discovery in their cover-up of Cambridge Analytica which broke wide open March 2018. Yellow was just unsealed - compare to Zuckerberg's testimony to @AOC. /1
This matters as it's long been expected much of Zuckerberg's messages on the matter happened directly with Sandberg or offline. It's an entirely rational practice to keep the CEO off the messy emails. Hence the need for discovery and depositions of Zuckerberg and Sandberg. /2
Meanwhile, Facebook:
- paid $5B to FTC to avoid depositions of leadership;
- negotiated questions off-limits the one time Sandberg testified;
- denied and deflected Parliaments attempts to get answers;
- so far, has avoided discovery and depositions of leadership by AG of DC. /3
Read 13 tweets
15 Dec 21
woah. new on DC docket. looks like the attorney general of DC filed 270 pages late Friday night documenting Facebook's multi-year resistance to discovery in its cover-up of Cambridge Analytica and related platform issues for 3yrs. stay with me until the end. /1
The most sensitive part is Facebook protecting these 4 executives from discovery/depositions. It's claimed to also be reason Zuckerberg was willing to pay $5B to the FTC.
It's an insult to every user a breach this problematic could happen without evidence from these 4 execs. /2
I mean this claim involved one of more infamous political operatives in DC at Facebook involved in a cover-up that protected the use of data in the most controversial election operation in history and allowed senior execs to continue to trade on the stock in the process. /3
Read 16 tweets
10 Dec 21
For those covering society, tech and policy, Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize speech is a an equally powerful witness to the importance of a free and plural press while a strong rebuke of Facebook, Inc and Mark Zuckerberg putting him in the same sentence with another authoritarian. /1
She describes Facebook in its bias against facts and journalism by their own design providing velocity and reach to lies and undermining trust. Dividing us and undermining global democracy. /2
Here, Ressa correctly dissects the core problem where market power is driven by unbridled data collection citing surveillance capitalism as the source of their strength. /3
Read 5 tweets

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