Turn Temporarily Pauses Their Use Of Verizon's Sneaky 'Zombie' Cookie

from the we-love-privacy-so-much-we're-killing-it dept

Last week we noted how an ad clearinghouse company by the name of Turn was found to be abusing Verizon's sneaky new stealth cookie, just a few months after Verizon claimed their new technology couldn't be abused by third parties. Verizon's basically modifying wireless user traffic streams and injecting a unique identifier traffic header, or UIDH. This header allows Verizon (and any third-party website that uses it) to track, collect and broadcast your online behaviors regardless of browser settings, and while Verizon's opt-out preferences opt you out of behavioral ads, they don't stop Verizon from fiddling with your traffic.

A great investigation by ProPublica found that Turn had been using Verizon's header for some time to re-enable cookie tracking, and that Turn's opt-out functionality didn't work either (despite repeated claims that it did). Turn initially penned a blog post that tried to downplay the story by claiming it was "disappointed" in ProPublica for failing to "educate the public." With that clearly not working, Turn has now posted a second blog entry that states it's suspending the program for "re-evaluation." As with so many PR responses, Turn just can't help itself when it comes to insisting this is still largely a matter of ProPublica being misleading and the public being confused:

"We appreciate the opportunity that Ms. Angwin provided us to discuss the method prior to publishing her and Mr. Migas’s story. While we were disappointed with certain inaccuracies in the story and missed opportunities to further educate the public, we value the work that ProPublica is doing to bring attention to the broad issues of data privacy. Had Mr. Mayer offered us the same opportunity, we could also have helped to address some of the inaccuracies and misconceptions evident in his piece. I’m a strong believer in the power of direct dialogue and I have reached out to Mr. Mayer so that it can begin."

In other words, we're so in love with consumer privacy we've been helping pioneer a technology that helps make consumer privacy choices entirely moot! Verizon meanwhile continues to happily modify user traffic, and when the company can be bothered to address concerns about the program, it largely tries to lay the blame at the foot of other companies for using Verizon's technology. Verizon's program FAQ, for example, implies that everything would be fine if companies would just use Verizon's UIDH header as it intended:

"Recent news reports have raised concerns about how TURN is using the UIDH for purposes outside of Verizon's advertising programs. TURN has announced its intent to discontinue this practice and we will work with other partners to ensure that their use of UIDHs is consistent with the purposes we intended."

Of course Turn is just one company, and since the UIDH is broadcast to every site and service a Verizon Wireless user visits, there will soon be a large number of other companies (many impervious to public outrage) joining the party. The EFF continues to urge Verizon to shutter the program, and Verizon pretty clearly continues to not give a damn.

Filed Under: privacy, zombie cookie
Companies: turn, verizon