Verizon's Smart Rewards Program Involves a Bit of Snooping

The mobile device is becoming an increasingly ubiquitous part of modern life. From the humble pay-as-you-go phone kept in the car as an emergency tool, to the tablet that goes everywhere, a user runs half the household. It is thanks to the connected home concept that the mobile device is clearly here to stay. But its ubiquity has come at a price; many users are now concerned that devices are quietly tracking users' every movement, transaction, and other interaction taking place. Verizon is taking advantage of this ubiquity, offering up a new loyalty program to reward users of Verizon Wireless service, but there's a bit of a catch: the one thing that many were concerned about happening quietly behind the scenes must be not only agreed to, but will happen in the open.

The new Verizon loyalty program—dubbed “Smart Rewards”--offers users a certain number of points for every dollar spent using Verizon Wireless service. It's currently available only in a few states, though reports suggest that a wider rollout is in the works for arrival fairly soon, with all customers on postpaid accounts reportedly set to get access to the service starting July 24. Smart Rewards was intended to serve not only as a loyalty program, but also as a way to drive enrollment in the Verizon Selects program, a program that tracks user surfing and location data with the device itself to improve targeting of Web advertising.

Smart Rewards reportedly offers up an assortment of discounts and savings, including up to 40 percent off certain merchandise from a pool of over 200 different brands, meaning that there's a little something in here for just about everybody. There's even a lowest-price guarantee included with these, and shipping is, as of last report, also free.

There's clearly a value to mobile commerce. We've seen this particular way of buying and selling products take off on an incredible scale over just the last few years, and Smart Rewards looks like it will really help light a fire under such commerce by making it more worth the user's while. But the means to do it may ultimately limit the impact that this program has. After all, users have been concerned about eavesdropping and tracking on mobile devices for some time now, so to think that there would be plenty of users out there who wouldn't voluntarily sign up to be subject to the thing that said users have been most concerned about for a long time now, would make sense. But then, there are some users who would throw over concerns about being tracked in exchange for discounts on assorted goodies, so Verizon is likely preaching to that particular choir here. We have video on this and a wide array of other topics located at this link.

Though Smart Rewards seems to be working well right now in its earliest state, there's nothing saying it will continue to do so in its wide release coming soon. Only time will tell if Verizon's offers of discounts will prove sufficient to overcome users' concerns about being tracked, though based on the initial reports, it looks like this might just be what Verizon needed.