Verizon To Put Location-Tracking Warning Sticker On Phones
Julianne Pepitone reports in CNN:
In the wake of a giant brouhaha over the news that Apple’s iPhones record and store users’ locations, Verizon Wireless says it will start slapping ‘we can track you!’ warning stickers on its products.
Verizon’s announcement came in the form of a letter to Representatives Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Joe Barton, a Texas Republican. In March, they asked the four major wireless carriers to explain how and why they track mobile location data.
All four carriers acknowledged that they store location data for varying periods of time, but Verizon was the only company to suggest a warning label. The company says it will begin including the removable sticker on all new devices it sells.
The sticker warns: “This device is capable of determining its (and your) physical, geographical location and can associate this location data with other customer information. To limit access to location information by…
FCC Commissioner Blasts “Bloated Profits” of Verizon/Google Internet Plan
FCC Commissioner Michael Copps just announced that the public shouldn’t stand for deals “that exchange Internet freedom for bloated profits. And he forcefully mocked the tiered-data plans of the “Verizon-Google gaggle,” accusing them of wanting “gated communities for the affluent.”
Instead of letting Verizon create a ghetto of reduced-quality internet service, the commissioner warns the audience against proposals that would “vastly diminish” the internet’s importance, blasting “special interests and gatekeepers and toll-booth collectors who will short-circuit what this great new technology can do for our country.” He concludes by acknowledging that “you can’t blame companies for seeking to protect their own interests. But you can blame policy-makers if we let them get away with it!””
Google’s Plans to Take Over The Internet Exposed!
From Alex Jones/InfoWars:
Google’s agreement with Verizon to speed certain Internet content to users opens the door to the complete sterilization of the world wide web as a force for political change. Under Google’s takeover plan, the Internet will closely resemble cable TV, independent voices will be silenced and the entire Internet will be bought up by transnational media giants.
4chan Being Blocked Again, This Time It’s Verizon
Ken Eakins writes via Sittingnow.co.uk:
DO WANT … on Verizon!
4chan site owner m00t has posted to the 4chan blog, and Twitter, that Verizon wireless, are blocking both in and outbound web-traffic to 4chan.
Unlike a recent scare involving AT&T last year, m00t believes that this time it’s for realsies, from the 4chan blog:
Over the past 72 hours, we’ve been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards. After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic to/from boards.4chan.org, only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional. A call was placed to their support staff last night, and we were told that the ticket would not be looked at until Monday at the earliest, and: “You’ll need the customer to call to request it be unblocked…”
If you’ve been affected by this block, please contact Verizon Wireless customer support.…
Is the Google Phone an Unauthorized Replicant?
Stories about Philip K. Dick’s daughter taking aim at Google’s deep-pockets for naming the “Google Phone” Nexus One have been all over tech blogs during the last week or so. Now that it seems the phone is truly about to come to market, maybe they’ll have to take her seriously. This summary story in the New York Times captures the issues fairly well:
Motorola tugged at the hearts of science-fiction fans everywhere when it announced that its first smartphone using Google’s Android software would be called Droid, the name given to the lovable robots in “Star Wars.”
Google appears to be trying the same tactic with its own soon-to-be-released Android phone. The device is called Nexus One in at least two government filings.
As many bloggers have noted, the name Nexus One seems to be a reference to the cyborgs in the dystopian movie “Blade Runner,” which in turn was based on the novel “Do…
