Tag Archives: Verizon

Sprint and Verizon Will Repay Millions For Illegal Billing.

16 Saturday May 2015

Posted by in Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Law

≈ Comments Off on Sprint and Verizon Will Repay Millions For Illegal Billing.

Tags

, , , ,

Sprint And Verizon Will Refund $120 Million To Consumers Harmed By Illegal Billing Practices, by Genessa Stout, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

http://tinyurl.com/n5l3q6q

Today [May 12, 2015] we’re announcing settlements with Sprint and Verizon, who illegally billed consumers over a hundred million dollars in unauthorized third-party charges. If approved, these will return $120 million directly to affected consumers.

Sprint’s and Verizon’s customers became victims by clicking on ads for ‘free’ digital content such as ring tones or daily horoscopes, and were then charged without their consent. Many people did not know that third parties could add charges to their wireless bills. The illegal billing often continued undetected for months.

Sprint’s and Verizon’s billing systems invited illegal third-party charges and the companies did little or nothing to root them out. Sprint and Verizon also failed to properly track and respond to consumer complaints about these charges, while collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue by serving as payment processors for these third-party companies. Sprint and Verizon received a 30-40 percent cut of every third-party charge. . . .

Continue reading →

Verizon Zombie Cookies Must Die!

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Android Phones, Cell Phones, Consumer Contracts, Consumer Law, Contract Law, Cybersecurity, Legal Technology

≈ Comments Off on Verizon Zombie Cookies Must Die!

Tags

, , , , , ,

Zombie Cookies Slated to be Killed, by Julia Angwin and Mike Tigas, ProPublica

http://tinyurl.com/n9d7ago

Tech company Turn said it would stop using tracking cookies that are impossible to delete. The decision came in response to a ProPublica article this week that revealed the controversial practice.

‘We have heard the concerns and are actively re-evaluating this method,’ Max Ochoa, Turn’s chief privacy officer, wrote in a blog post.

He said the company plans aims to suspend the practice by ‘early February.’

Turn’s zombie cookie was exploiting a hidden undeletable number that Verizon uses to track its customers on their smartphones on tablets. Turn used the Verizon number to respawn tracking cookies that users had deleted. The company said it will now re-evaluate its practices.

Turn’s decision to suspend the practice was a sharp reversal from its previous stance. It had previously argued that ‘clearing cookies is not a reliable way for a user to express their desire not to receive tailored advertising.’

Critics across the Web vocally disagreed. Jason Kint, CEO of a trade association for digital content companies, wrote that ‘this kind of surreptitious behavior does nothing to build trust between consumers, advertisers and publishers.’ The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, said Turn’s action made it ‘ impossible for customers to meaningfully control their online privacy.’

Permacookies – AT&T’s and Verizon’s Way Of Saying “Hello.”

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Apple, Cell Phones, Cybersecurity, iPad, iPhones, Legal Technology, Mac, Search Engines, Tablets

≈ Comments Off on Permacookies – AT&T’s and Verizon’s Way Of Saying “Hello.”

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

AT&T Kills The ‘Permacookie,’ Stops Tracking Customers’ Internet Usage (For Now), by Nick Mediati, PC World

http://tinyurl.com/kff7k94

In recent weeks, Verizon and AT&T have been caught up in a privacy firestorm over their use of so-called ‘permacookies,’ a method of tracking what their users do while browsing the Web with the intent of sharing that data with advertisers. Verizon’s permacookie program lives on, but AT&T has ceased the practice, ProPublica reported on Friday.

At least for now.

AT&T tells ProPublica that its use of permacookies was ‘part of a test,’ which has since wrapped up, but the company says that it ‘may still launch a program to sell data collected by its tracking number.’ For its part, AT&T says that it will allow customers to opt out of the program if—or when—it decides to use permacookies for advertising purposes.

The story behind the story: Permacookies aren’t cookies in the traditional sense: Instead, they’re unique identifiers appended to website addresses you type in on your device that let carriers see what kinds of sites you visit.

Permacookies exist for the same reason traditional tracking cookies exist—so advertisers can see what sorts of things you might be interested and serve up related ads in the hopes that you’ll click on them. But unlike regular tracking cookies, which you can easily delete from your browser or block entirely, there’s no way of removing or blocking permacookies since they’re handled entirely by the carrier. . . .

Apple and Google Fighting Patent Trolls In the U.S. Supreme Court.

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by in Appellate Law, Apple, Google, Intellectual Property, Legal Technology, Patent Law, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, United States Supreme Court

≈ Comments Off on Apple and Google Fighting Patent Trolls In the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Supreme Court Takes on Patent Trolls, by Greg Stohr and Susan Decker, Technology, BloombergBusinessweek

http://tinyurl.com/mav2rc4

Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) say they’re tired of being slapped with baseless patent suits that cost them millions in legal fees. Now they’re asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let them hit back. The two are leading a group of companies urging the court to make it easier for businesses to recover legal costs when they win a patent infringement suit. In two cases to be argued this month, the justices will hear them out.

More than 100,000 businesses were threatened in 2012 by ‘patent assertion entities.’ Often derided as patent trolls, these companies get most of their revenue from licensing patents and from suing other companies for infringement. They filed 19 percent of all patent lawsuits from 2007 to 2011, according to the Government Accountability Office. . . .