Verizon Wireless to Allow Complete Opt Out of Mobile ‘Supercookies’
Verizon Wireless, which has been under fire by privacy advocates since late last year, has decided to make a major revision to its mobile ad-targeting program. Users who do not want to be tracked with an identifier …
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon's announcement follows days after coverage of its mobile 'supercookies' being flagged as a privacy threat by advocates late last year — the identifier was unique per user and previously couldn't be deleted or refused. The complete opt-out reverses that design choice for customers who don't want to be tracked for ad targeting.
First-order effects
- Customers who opt out can no longer be matched with an advertising identifier by Verizon's mobile ad-targeting program, removing the carrier-side tracking signal entirely rather than just resetting it.
- Ad partners built on Verizon's identifier program lose access to opted-out subscribers' traffic, shrinking the addressable audience the program can offer.
Second-order effects
- The opt-out only works if partners honor it — Turn was later charged by the FTC with continuing to track consumers after they opted out, forcing the partner ecosystem into compliance it had not practiced.
- Verizon's own incentives pull the other way: months later it merged the supercookie data into AOL's ad network to match users' online habits with personal details, deepening the value of exactly what the opt-out removes.
Third-order effects
- Regulators moved from pressure to penalty — Verizon paid a $1.35M fine for not disclosing supercookie use between 2012 and 2014, establishing disclosure-and-consent as the enforcement template for carrier identifiers.
- If carriers keep monetizing network-level tracking while regulators police its edges, the structural fight shifts to whether access providers may sell their subscribers' identities at all — the access-layer-power question underneath this whole saga.
The trend: Carrier-level ad tracking is moving from silent default to consent-gated product, with FTC enforcement and fines setting the terms faster than voluntary policy changes do.