T-Mobile Will Begin Selling Your Personal Data To Advertisers. Here’s How To Opt-Out.
If you’re a T-Mobile customer, you’ll want to read this. On April 26th T-Mobile will be selling customer data unless you choose to opt-out.
T-Mobile has claimed that the data sold will be anonymous, but do you really trust that? The data being sold does include web-browsing and device-usage information.
This will happen automatically unless customers opt-out of the new program.
Starting April 26, 2021, T‑Mobile will begin a new program that uses some data we have about you, including information we learn from your web and device usage data (like the apps installed on your device) and interactions with our products and services for our own and 3rd party advertising, unless you tell us not to. When we share this information with third parties, it is not tied to your name or information that directly identifies you.
T-Mobile said in a privacy notice
T-Mobile says that to make the data anonymous before being sold, that they will be tied to an “advertising identifier” or another “unique identifier”. So it’s not tied to your name, but it’s tied to an “identifier” that is tied to you…
Maybe I’m a weirdo, but that doesn’t sound super anonymous to me. The data collected could be very personal.
We only share Advertising IDs, which are pooled to create audience segments based on customer interests, like sports or entertainment. We do not share underlying customer broadband or device usage data with third parties.
T-Mobile spokesperson told ars TECHNICA
T-Mobile’s privacy policy indicates that “Advertising IDs are linked to individual devices”. So, is it really truly anonymous?
Here’s How To Opt-Out
The directions for opting out can be found on the first page of the T-Mobile privacy notice. Although, some customers have said that they have had problems and that it took several tries to get it done.
There are some other opt-out links here and a link here to change the “Do Not Sell” setting. I personally don’t think customers should have to jump through so many hoops to do this and am a bit annoyed.
