“In many cases, customers are totally unaware of the extent that operators use and process their personal data,” says Javier Ruiz, Policy Director at Open Rights Group (ORG), a UK-based organisation that seeks to protect digital rights.
THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM TMN QUARTERLY ISSUE 14, CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL FEATURE
A recent ORG report entitled Cashing in on your mobile? — with the provocative strapline of How phone companies are exploiting their customers’ data — shows O2 and EE as each having sophisticated mobile analytics divisions to help with internal marketing and build
up money-spinning relationships with third-party. Neither operator, however, gives consumers the ability to opt out (although Vodafone does).
Ruiz argues that most EE customers would be concerned to learn that the operator’s mData platform collects not only location and demographic data, but also their internet traffic — website history up to the first slash, and all http traffic from mobile apps. The ORG man worries, too, about what he sees as a lack of transparency between Telefonica-owned O2 and Weve, a mobile marketing platform also owned by the Spanish giant…
THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM TMN QUARTERLY ISSUE 14, CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL FEATURE
NOTE: This article is the first in a series of four articles specially commissioned for TMN Quarterly by inaugural guest editor Mary Clark, CMO of Syniverse. In a post on Syniverse’s site, Clark talks about her aims and goals as guest editor, and explains her aims in choosing the issues she did. The feature of privacy addresses a key concern for operators, how to use customer data in a way that creates better services, while safeguarding customer details and security.
CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE RESEARCH ON CONSUMER ATTITUDES TO SHARING DATA WITH TELCO PROVIDERS.
TMN will publish the remaining three features, on Ad Blocking, Contextual Services and LTE Rollouts in the coming days.
