After issues were raised with AT&T’s tracking techniques placing them and their rivals Verizon Wireless into the fire of privacy advocates and consumers together. However, they announced today that they would stop their tracking practices after naming it a ‘test run’.
The scandal started after a unique identifier was found inserted into the web activity of the consumers. This would not have been so bad had consumers had a method to opt-out of the tracking. AT&T announced that they tracking served as a powerful tool for advertisers even if it the consumers were not happy. “It has been phased off our network,” a spokesperson told ProPublica.
However, AT&T did not mention anything about the possible relaunching of the program, but did say that if the plan were ever to be rolled out to a wider audience, consumers would have a method to opt-out.
It was discovered that Verizon had stopped tracking also when websites set up to detect the technique show that phones on the network are no longer being tracked. Some hypothesize that Verizon has used a new technique to avoid detection, but it’s more likely that the negative response from consumers pressured Verizon into backing down.
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