Verizon Draws Fire for Monitoring App Usage, Browsing Habits

From Declan McCullagh's article in CNet:

Ryan Radia, associate director of technology studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank, agrees with the EFF's Fakhoury that disclosing aggregated URLs visited can be legally risky. "If Verizon Wireless discloses the URLs you've accessed without your consent, it has violated (the Wiretap Act) — even if Verizon Wireless doesn't disclose any other identifying information," Radia said.

But, Radia argues, Verizon has obtained consent for its Precision Market Insights program by updating its privacy policy and allowing customers to opt out. That's sufficient to satisfy the Wiretap Act by putting the company's subscribers on notice, he says, and notes that a lawsuit that arose out of NebuAd's monitoring was dismissed last year (PDF).