AT&T's controversial tracking program was recently revealed

Nov 15, 2014 11:35 GMT  ·  By

AT&T has announced that it stopped the controversial program that got it into hot water last month, which placed a hidden and undetectable tracking number to its mobile customers’ Internet activity.

Understandably, the news that this was a common practice for AT&T didn’t come off great and there was a huge public backlash.

“It’s been phased off our network,” said Emily J. Edmonds, AT&T spokeswoman, reports ProPublica.

This comes after both AT&T and Verizon were heavily criticized for inserting tracking numbers into their subscribers’ Internet activity, even after users opted out. According to a recent report from ProPublica, Twitter’s mobile advertising unit was allowing its clients to use the Verizon identifier.

Worse than cookies

What these numbers mean is that sites can use a whole database about individuals and the sites they visit on mobile devices, but also what apps they use, sites they visit and how much time they spend on those locations.

Since traditional tracking methods, such as cookies, which are extremely popular on desktop computers aren’t effective on monitoring people’s behavior on mobile devices, these telcos thought it was a good idea to come up with a new method that is even more invasive than the cookies. While cookies will track what sites you use, they won’t step away from the browsers and look into what other apps you use on your computer, such as the tracking numbers do.

AT&T said that it used the tracking number as part of a test, although they didn’t sound too convincing about it. Either way, they promise that the testing period has now reached its end and the idea has been pushed aside.

Edmonds did say, however, that AT&T may still end up launching a program to sell data collected by its tracking number. The telco added that this would only happen if customers choose for this to happen and that customers will be able to opt out of the ad program and not have the numeric code inserted on their device.

Considering the massive threat to privacy this tracking number poses, it’s hard to believe that anyone will say “yes” to this proposal.

Verizon, on the other hand, is still hanging on to its tracking program. A spokesperson with the company said that they were evaluating it all, just like with any other program.

The huge telco uses this system to identify the users’ behavior and offer advertisers information about users. Verizon insists, however, that the data isn’t connected to a users’ identity and that everything is anonymous when it gets to the advertisers.

AT&T stops tracking users (4 Images)

AT&T has quit using the tracking system
AT&T will still sell user dataVerizon doesn't care as much about users' privacy
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