The tracking ID persists even after users opt out of targeted ads.

Evidence

By the fall of 2014, Verizon’s stealthy new claim on free raw material was outed by Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, a technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. An article in Wired called attention to Hoffman-Andrews’ analysis of Verizon’s surveillance program and his additional discovery that AT&T was using a similar tracking ID. The article quoted a Verizon spokesperson admitting, “There’s no way to turn it off.” Hoffman-Andrews observed that even when customers opt out of Verizon’s targeted ads, its tracking ID persists, as the corporation bypasses or overrides all signals of a user’s intentions, including the Do Not Track setting, Incognito and other private browsing modes, and cookie deletion. The ID is then broadcast to every “unencrypted website a Verizon customer visits from a mobile device. It allows third-party advertisers and websites to assemble a deep, permanent profile of visitors’ web browsing habits without their consent.” Alarmed by the threat of fresh competition, Google, posing as a privacy advocate, launched a campaign for a new internet protocol that would prevent “header injections” such as Verizon’s PrecisionID. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 523

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to critiques of ‘do not track’ and industry self-regulation more broadly — advertising’s optics of choice versus actual override. — connects to: Opting out of tracking legitimizes surveillance rather than challenging it — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1095; Facebook stores user tracking data in a separate system it refuses to expose — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1542

Broader Connections

• Opting out of tracking legitimizes surveillance rather than challenging it #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1095
• Facebook stores user tracking data in a separate system it refuses to expose #exemplifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1542