It seems to me that Verizon has had a substantial share of problems with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the past several years. A couple of years ago in July 2012, Verizon Wireless was ordered to pay $1.25 million to resolve an investigation into whether the company had fully complied with the FCC’s “C Block rules,” requiring licensees of C Block spectrum to allow customers to freely use the devices and applications of their choosing.
Then later that same year after the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, Verizon wanted to replace all of the copper cable that was destroyed with wireless service. After the FCC got involved, Verizon decided to bow to consumer complaints and rebuild the area using fiber optics.
On September 3, 2014 an investigation from the FCC accuses Verizon Wireless of violating its customers’ privacy. According to the FCC, its investigation found that starting back in 2006 somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million new Verizon phone customers did not receive proper privacy notices in their first bill.
Phone companies are generally prohibited from using personal data they collect from their customers, though such data can be used for marketing if the consumer gives permission. Receiving the proper privacy notice would have, not only informed the customer of their rights, but also prevented the use any information without the customer’s permission. The notices would have told consumers how to opt out of having their personal information used to tailor marketing offers, which is something that Verizon later sent to some of them. While phone companies are allowed to do this, it must first obtain consent from the customer.
Travis LeBlanc, who is the acting chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, made the following comments, "In today’s increasingly connected world, it is critical that every phone company honor its duty to inform customers of their privacy choices and then to respect those choices. It is plainly unacceptable for any phone company to use its customers’ personal information for thousands of marketing campaigns without even giving them the choice to opt out.”
The violation was discovered by the FCC over a year ago in January 2013. Turns out that Verizon actually realized that there was a problem several months earlier in September and a Verizon Wireless representative told the FCC that there might be an issue. Along with this issue and other violations, Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $7.4 million to the U.S. Treasury.
Verizon claims that the error was simply an oversight. A company spokesman, Ed McFadden, said "The issue here was that a notice required by FCC rules inadvertently was not provided to certain of Verizon's wireline customers before they received marketing materials from Verizon for other Verizon services that might be of interest to them. It did not involve a data breach or an unauthorized disclosure of customer information to third parties. Verizon takes seriously its obligation to comply with all FCC rules and once we discovered the issue with the notices we informed the FCC, fixed the problem and implemented a number of measures to ensure it does not recur.” Two million customers seems more than just “certain of” to me.
When it comes to smartphones, Verizon, as well as other wireless companies, regardless of size, have access to such a wide and diverse amount of customer data. This is supposed to be used for their marketing purposes however it can also be sold to a third party. Information such as your physical location, your app usage and your browsing habits can all be tracked by your carrier and mined for advertising purposes.
In an effort to make its customers feel more at ease, Verizon has now agreed to send opt-out notices on every bill not just the first bill that a new customer receives. It will also pay the largest fine in FCC's history of settlements over investigations into telephone customers' personal data privacy.
Edited by
Maurice Nagle 
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