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AT&T, Verizon Using 'Perma-Cookies' to Track Customer Web Activity

Rigby said:
That's the thing: They are not placing anything on your phone. They insert the tracking IDs into your traffic as it passes through their network. There is nothing you can do about it except encrypting your traffic (using a VPN or forcing HTTPS everywhere).
Click to expand...

I don't see how encryption (VPN or otherwise) can have any effect on this. You send an encrypted request via web and they inject a tracking ID on top of your encrypted request. If the website you visit has any trackers or beacons looking out for that tracking ID your visit is immediately identified and shared with Verizon/AT&T's network, so they can effectively track any site you've visited that has an affiliated tracker/beacon.

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roland.g said:
Sure there is. Get an AdTrap for your home network. You can even set up a proxy so that all your away traffic is routed through home. It gives you a bit of performance hit, but ad-free browsing and content streaming is fantastic.
Click to expand...

That will block the ads from reaching you but it will do nothing to prevent them from tracking everywhere you go, which I think is by far the bigger threat. You can already avoid most ads using browser plugins like AdBlock. That's irrelevant.

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12vElectronics said:
Meh.. if I have to see advertisements, it might as well be about stuff I'm interested in.
Click to expand...

Right, because advertisers will only show you ads you want to see, as opposed to using your web browsing habits to fine tune which UNWANTED ads to show you.

I don't remember the last time I was shown an ad for something I would consider relevant to my wants and tastes. If that's how advertising really worked we wouldn't hate ads so much.

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johndellis said:
An anonymizing VPN like Viking or an equivalent will circumvent this. They cannot embed a cookie into an encrypted stream to your VPN server which is marshaling all traffic to and fro.
Click to expand...

Once again, this has nothing to do with cookies and VPN is useless against it.
 
nutmac said:
How does that help you when you are on cellular network with mobile devices?
Click to expand...

Features
• Automatically updates as advertisers change schemes
• AdTrap also works with all-in-one modem/routers provided by your Internet provider
• Blocks advertisements from music and video streams, mobile apps and web pages
• Works with all browsers
• Works with any Internet enabled device
• Cleaner and faster loading websites
• AdTrap Anywhere removes ads anywhere you go, over cellular networks
• Protects your privacy, prevents tracking and profiling techniques used by advertisers
• Zero software to install, zero configuration
Setup

Check it out at getadtrap.com

Also the link to the setup process in their support forums for AdTrap Anywhere.

http://forums.getadtrap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2588
 
I've just opted out of all this garbage, by spending the money I was going to put toward several more ipads on a beautiful antique wooden boat instead.

Good luck tracking mahogany.
 
Rigby said:
That's the thing: They are not placing anything on your phone. They insert the tracking IDs into your traffic as it passes through their network. There is nothing you can do about it except encrypting your traffic (using a VPN or forcing HTTPS everywhere).
Click to expand...
Dang it. Ok, thanks for clarifying.
 
nutmac said:
As Checking known AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Bell Canada & Vodacom Unique Identifier beacons... page points out, opting out on AT&T and Verizon does not stop perms-cookies. It's only for opting out of marketing junk.
Click to expand...

Correct. The only thing I can think of that MIGHT protect against this is to use a plugin such as Ghostery (https://www.ghostery.com/en/) to block all the beacons and trackers that could detect your unique identifier when you visit a website.

The limitation is that some websites or website features won't work with certain trackers/beacons blocked - but at least then you can make a conscious decision about whether that particular website's content is worth your privacy.

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roland.g said:
Features
• Automatically updates as advertisers change schemes
• AdTrap also works with all-in-one modem/routers provided by your Internet provider
• Blocks advertisements from music and video streams, mobile apps and web pages
• Works with all browsers
• Works with any Internet enabled device
• Cleaner and faster loading websites
• AdTrap Anywhere removes ads anywhere you go, over cellular networks
• Protects your privacy, prevents tracking and profiling techniques used by advertisers
• Zero software to install, zero configuration
Setup

Check it out at getadtrap.com

Also the link to the setup process in their support forums for AdTrap Anywhere.

http://forums.getadtrap.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2588
Click to expand...


Stop posting this. This will do nothing to stop tracking via unique identifier.
 
freediverx said:
I don't see how encryption (VPN or otherwise) can have any effect on this. You send an encrypted request via web and they inject a tracking ID on top of your encrypted request.
Click to expand...
No, they can't. If you use HTTPS, the traffic is encrypted end-to-end between you and the web server. If you use a VPN, it's encrypted between you and the VPN provider. In both cases the access providers cannot manipulate the traffic because they can't decrypt it.

Note that what they do is a pretty deep intrusion into your traffic. Web traffic (HTTP) is transported over a protocol called TCP, which is supposed to create a reliable end-to-end connection between you and the web server. It has mechanisms to ensure the integrity of the traffic (using checksums). Basically, what the carriers are doing is altering the TCP payload and manipulating the TCP packets in a way that neither you nor the remote server will notice it. This is a blatant violation of the so-called end-to-end principle which is a cornerstone of the Internet's architecture. Not to mention that it is also a blatant violation of their customers' trust.
 
I don't know about you guys but I kindof like the idea of seeing ads that are relevant to me. I would much rather be advertised a product or service that I would be more likely to enjoy than something I'm not interested in.
 
freediverx said:
I don't see how encryption (VPN or otherwise) can have any effect on this. You send an encrypted request via web and they inject a tracking ID on top of your encrypted request. If the website you visit has any trackers or beacons looking out for that tracking ID your visit is immediately identified and shared with Verizon/AT&T's network, so they can effectively track any site you've visited that has an affiliated tracker/beacon.

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That will block the ads from reaching you but it will do nothing to prevent them from tracking everywhere you go, which I think is by far the bigger threat. You can already avoid most ads using browser plugins like AdBlock. That's irrelevant.

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Right, because advertisers will only show you ads you want to see, as opposed to using your web browsing habits to fine tune which UNWANTED ads to show you.

I don't remember the last time I was shown an ad for something I would consider relevant to my wants and tastes. If that's how advertising really worked we wouldn't hate ads so much.

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Once again, this has nothing to do with cookies and VPN is useless against it.
Click to expand...

i'm no network expert but look at the ad between with vpn and w/o.
 

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Are they doing this to add in ads into webpages where those ads would not otherwise be? Or manipulating already existing ad spaces in webpages so the page knows its 'you' based on previous ad profiles?



All in all not surprising from big blue and red. They've long been on set on monetizing their customers from every angle regardless of the morality or method of doing so.
 
HappyDude20 said:
You can only opt out of the relevant advertising. There is no option to opt out of them collecting web activity from you.
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My reading is even worse:

If you opt out from AT&T, by their phrasing:

- They will STILL track you with this code.

- They MAY still share their tracking info with third parties, who can then also track you.

- THEY (AT&T) will not themselves serve you ads based on the profile they've built about your online activity. You have opted out of that specific use of the data.

- But third parties CAN still serve you ads based on the collected data. You'd have to opt out with them, if you even could.

Or it may well not be AS bad as the phrasing suggests. But even if so, it still should be illegal.
 
It makes me chuckle many of you think there is privacy on the internet. Too funny. I bet you are also posing using Google Chrome. Of course you would trust a free product from a company who's bread and butter is marketing.
 
For ATT:
I had to use mobile safari to get the page to work. In chrome it kept claiming I was using a wired/wifi connection and was not on the ATT network.
 
If you aren't creeped out enough yet, take a look at this article from 2 years ago about Verizon's "Precision Marketing" program:

http://www.cnet.com/news/verizon-draws-fire-for-monitoring-app-usage-browsing-habits/

Quote:
The company this month began offering reports to marketers showing what Verizon subscribers are doing on their phones and other mobile devices, including what iOS and Android apps are in use in which locations. Verizon says it may link the data to third-party databases with information about customers' gender, age, and even details such as "sports enthusiast, frequent diner or pet owner."

"We're able to view just everything that they do," Bill Diggins, U.S. chief for the Verizon Wireless marketing initiative, told an industry conference earlier this year. "And that's really where data is going today. Data is the new oil."
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Apparently they have now moved on from just wiretapping your traffic to manipulating it ...
 
i-John said:
Big Data has been collecting your info for years. Every company does it. How is this any different than 100% of every other company?
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1) Not every company does it.
2) Many that have some level of tracking merely do so to minimize waste (supermarket "club cards" as an example).
3) This is different because AT&T and Verizon don't have any benefit to their core business by collecting data.
If a supermarket can figure out buying patterns through club card data collection, they can reduce discarded (wasted) food, which not only helps them decrease wasted inventory, but due to food being commodity driven, will reduce the price customers of their competitors will pay, too.
AT&T and Verizon offer a subscription package where their own costs are mostly fixed and they already know how much bandwidth gets used when and where. Plus, if some bandwidth gets wasted, that has no bearing on the bandwidth availability of their competitors. Besides, inefficiency by either company doesn't exactly contribute to children starving in inner cities.

In other words, in this case, data collection has no relation to keeping costs down, it merely serves to sell out customers for an extra buck.
 
I'm paying AT&T to move/deliver my data, nothing more, nothing less. They should not be alerting my data in any way. If they are, and are going to make money while they are doing it, THEN I WANT A FREAKIN' DISCOUNT ON MY DATA PLAN!

It's like me leasing me a car from Chrysler a set price, and then, after the fact, Chrysler deciding that can make some extra money by surreptitiously adding a GPS tracker to my car during an oil change service and then selling that tracking data to god knows who.
 
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