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Businesses Communications United States

T-Mobile To Step Up Ad Targeting of Cellphone Customers (wsj.com) 82

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
T-Mobile will automatically enroll its phone subscribers in an advertising program informed by their online activity, testing businesses' appetite for information that other companies have restricted. From a report: The No. 2 U.S. carrier by subscribers said in a recent privacy-policy update that unless they opt out it will share customers' web and mobile-app data with advertisers starting April 26. For example, the program could help advertisers identify people who enjoy cooking or are sports enthusiasts, the company said. T-Mobile's new policy will also cover Sprint customers acquired through the carriers' 2020 merger. Sprint had previously shared similar data only from customers who opted into its third-party ad program.

A T-Mobile spokeswoman said the changes give subscribers advertising that aligns with their interests. "We've heard many say they prefer more relevant ads so we're defaulting to this setting," she said. T-Mobile ended 2020 with more than 60 million phone users under its main brand and more than 20 million customers on prepaid plans. The company said the changes wouldn't apply to business accounts or children's lines.
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T-Mobile To Step Up Ad Targeting of Cellphone Customers More

T-Mobile To Step Up Ad Targeting of Cellphone Customers

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  • And ruin these suckers.

    • And ruin these suckers.

      Install adaway for free and don't worry about it.

      • Doesn't stop them from printing you based on traffic or dns requests one bit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ncc74656 ( 45571 ) *

        And ruin these suckers.

        Install adaway for free and don't worry about it.

        Embrace the power of "and." Install an adblock and sign up for a VPN.

    • Amazing logic.

      "You pay more than you should? Pay *more* to not-even-really stop it."

      If you constantly hit your head on the door, do you also take painkillers and wear a knight's armor to walk straight througj the door, instead of, you know, not closing the door before you want to pass through? ;))

      (No offense, just parodying your lack of thinking this through. :)

    • Why not just get a business account?

    • I would not expect them to overcome any technical difficulty via technology. Their IT department are among the worst I have seen in my lifetime.

      For months they pestered me to convert to their unlimited bandwidth plan. That plan of course eventually throttles you once you exceed the allotment.

      I rarely exceed my current paid plan and they cannot shorten my usage.

      Guess what they can change? The unlimited plan!

      They eventually stopped asking and I bet they moved me to their garbage without my permission. I opted

  • Exchange rate. (Score:3)

    by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @01:49PM (#61141304) Journal

    Will people's bills be lowered the equivalent of the money generated from these ads?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Ah ha ha ha ha ha! AHHHH HAHA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

      Oh, wait... you're serious? They're so cute when they're naive, aren't they?

    • Will people's bills be lowered the equivalent of the money generated from these ads?

      I've opted out of ads a couple of years ago.. that took multiple phone calls and some escalation. If ads start appearing all the sudden I will have a nasty phone chat with them about whether or not I continue doing business with an entity that needs me to hound them over something I was pretty fucking clear about. It's bad enough that they want me to do autopay to save $10/mo. and after what's happened in Texas I'm reconsidering that, too.

      This is off-topic but why the fuck can't I tell my bank or credit c

      • And now you know why I don't do autopay. If I really need to do something like that; my banks billpay feature achieves the same results under my control. The forgetful can set alerts on their cellphone.

      • Do you not have some sort of banking industry guarantee for billpay or autopay?

        In the UK most people pay monthly bills by Direct Debit - its an agreement between you, your bank and the recipient that allows the recipient to take money from your account on demand. It comes with a boat load of guarantees such as the ability to dispute any transaction with your bank and your bank will immediately return the funds to you, which makes you whole while allowing you to further dispute the charge with the vendor - u

        • Nope. in the US you have no protections like that unless you use a credit card account. (May not be true in all states, idk.) The protections come from the usury laws that apply to all credit card accounts.

          On that note though, tmobile is autopay to a credit card account, so effectively we can have those protections. There are companies that do only allow debit cards and ach for autopay, which is something I wouldn't ever do myself.

  • BS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @01:49PM (#61141306)
    "We've heard many say they prefer more relevant ads so we're defaulting to this setting," - Yeah right, complete and utter BS.

  • Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rogoshen1 ( 2922505 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @01:50PM (#61141310)

    Spokesdrone: "We've heard many say they prefer more relevant ads so we're defaulting to this setting"
    No, we want no ads. fuck off. No one wants to be surveilled and spied on by their phone.

    Also, thanks for making it a default opt-in though guys, really putting your customers first.

    • Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:11PM (#61141444) Homepage Journal

      Have fun with the EU investigation, T-Mobile.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )
        Really? I didn't know T-Mobile has a big presence in the EU.

        • Re:Nonsense (Score:4, Informative)

          by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:38PM (#61141552) Homepage
          They were originally spun out of Deutsche Telekom, so yeah, they've got a pretty big presence in Europe. Currently they're one of the largest mobile operators in ten separate European countries, according to Wikipedia, although as long as they don't roll out this setting in any of those ten that are also members of the EU I doubt very much that the EU is going to care one bit, let alone start an investigation into it.

          • "so yeah, they've got a pretty big presence in Europe"

            T-Mobile as a brand used by some mobile operating companies owned by Deutsche Telekom has some presence in Europe, but T-Mobile US does not operate in Europe.

            • They are though doing business in Arizona, and I did not see any notice or exception to this new autoenroll in selling your data for AZ as I do when disabling for Verizon. Arizona passed some laws in 2004 about required disclosure when Quest did this back in, I don't remember, >=2004.
  • Why do I get so many ads for gambling sites? I have never gambled. And Dodge RAM pickups. Never owned a pickup, wouldn't want one.

  • look on the bright side - (Score:3)

    by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @01:57PM (#61141352)

    Of course, in fairness to subscribers, they will lower the cost of the service to reflect gains in advertising revenue. What? That isn't part of the deal? Shocking!!

  • They turned on settings that I explicitly turned off for all my lines because "most" people want those settings turned on.

    Bastards! They will be the first against the wall.

    • right? and the problem is once one provider starts doing it, the others will join suit because they don't want to leave money on the table. it's all so tiresome.

      is there an app that poisons the well and feeds them bullshit analytics? Or is it down to just ditching smart phones entirely. Out of principle i don't want to be tracked, surveilled, spied on, marketed to.. or otherwise pestered. just leave me alone.

      I pay a monthly subscription fee, that should be the extent of our relationship; my personal data/br

      • They're the last cell phone company of the big carriers in the US to do this. I wasn't even able to disable it with At&t.

    • Beware of their agents provocateur moles though, or you're gonna end up like Occupy.

  • Oh, right: So they got a source of income for the services they offer and those with no conscience don't resort to criminal bullshit like this here!

    Does anyone still think it's not high time for an American GDPR?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thomn8r ( 635504 )

      Does anyone still think it's not high time for an American GDPR?

      It is, but with so much regulatory capture and campaign contributions, it will never happen.

      • Long past time, but exactly as thomn8r said. We don't and won't get actual representation as long as politicians aren't majority corporately funded.
  • anyone know where the ads are actually displayed? I'm a customer and I don't get ads on my Phone from T-Mobile unless I open their app.
  • "I would rather a punch to the face than a kick to the nads" does not mean "please punch my face".

  • Ads vs paywalls.. why not both? (Score:3, Informative)

    by TeddyRick ( 6515134 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:13PM (#61141450)
    I don't like ads or paywalls.. so here I am pointed to an article about how I will be getting targeted ads on my t-mobile phone but the link is paywalled.

    • It says right there in the summary.

      They're not going to be targeting you with ads, they're going to be "sharing" your information with the advertisers so they can target you with ads.

      • True.. To be honest.. I was trying to complain about paywall articles being used on slashdot in a passive-aggressive way and lost my way.
  • If you really want to stop this nonsense call them up and waste the customer service reps time. Ask how much you will be paid for this. When they say nothing and that analytics help keep costs low then suggest they stop doing stupid shit like this so people don't have to call, resulting in less customer service staff, which will save everyone money! I plan to do that tonight, for now I updated my analytics settings under account profile.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pcaylor ( 648195 )

      I called (twice) and both CSRs I spoke to were completely ignorant on this. One even was adamant that T-mobile doesn't share your data. Then I pointed her to the privacy policy. "Oh" was the response.

      Still though, I encourage everyone on T-mobile to call 611 and complain about it. If they see how unpopular it is, they might back off (at least for now.)

    • My time has a lot more value to me than to bother with anything other then disabling it and letting everyone else that has tmobile know to disable it. It's been at least twenty today.

  • Gee, there's such a shortage of ads, spam, and pop-ups. Good to know they are filling in that Grand Gap. It's the kind of forward thinking we need from oligopolies. Raises for all the creative executives; go synergy!

  • Marketing is the new Tobacco (Score:3)

    by Carcass666 ( 539381 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:44PM (#61141582)

    Both industries employ lots of decent people (farmers, store clerks, graphic artists, proof readers, etc.) that nonetheless are just absolutely ruthless in their efforts to profit from addiction (cigarettes and free content).

    Seriously, fuck both of these industries. Now that the FCC isn't lead by the most punchable face on the planet, perhaps we could have some oversight into how these oligopolist companies licensing public spectrum are actually treating the public. Free Market isn't going to fix this, because there is no free market for a finite and expensive shared resource (spectrum). This is why we have FCC, and if they can control when I can hear the work Fuck on television, then they can damn well set some boundaries over how my behavior is sold to parties without my knowledge or consent.

    • The one thing that tobacco had going for it was that at the end of the day a good cigarette is a smoke. A good ad isn't anything.

  • Tâ'Mobile customers can log in to accounts to opt out of the use of broadband data for these purposes here:

    Visiting https://my.t/ [my.t]â'Mobile.com/account/profile/privacy_notifications/advertising

    From https://www.t-mobile.com/priva... [t-mobile.com] under anlaytics section.

  • Aligned to my interests? Ummm, OK (Score:3)

    by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @02:50PM (#61141600)
    But is there a large and vibrant goatse ad campaign that I'm not aware of?

  • "We heard" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Scutter ( 18425 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:00PM (#61141632) Journal

    Which do you prefer more?
    A) Targeted ads
    B) Botulism
    C) A sharp stick in the eye

    "See? Everyone said they'd prefer targeted ads. What's the problem?"

  • Only for phones purchased through T-Mobile (Score:5, Informative)

    by turp182 ( 1020263 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:06PM (#61141648) Journal

    I use T-Mobile as my cellular provider, but I brought my own phone so it's not a T-Mobile flavored Android. There's nothing T-Mobile related on my phone.

    But for people that want to opt out, I believe these are the instructions:
    https://www.t-mobile.com/priva... [t-mobile.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kazymyr ( 190114 )

      I think you're deluding yourself. I'm a former Sprint customer, now caught into the net of T-mobile. I didn't buy muy phone from either T-mobile nor Sprint. And yet, the setting to target me with ads was on. I just turned it off - and I'm sure it was off about a year ago, before the buyout. I'll have to set a reminder to check at least once a month and turn it back off when they turn it back on again. It's not a matter of if, but of when.

  • This pervasive accumulation of personal data is annoying and harmful to society.

  • ‘relevant ads’ (Score:3)

    by k2r ( 255754 ) on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @03:27PM (#61141730)

    Relevant just means effective.
    If the ads nudge your mother to become member of a cult or MLM-scheme, they are ‘relevant‘.
    If the ads sell a useless subscription to your naive brother they are ‘relevant‘.
    If the ads show you the right type of disinformation at the right point in time to make you click a link that in the end installs malware on your computer, they are ‘relevant‘.

    We all have weak spots and we all are defenseless sometimes, but we try to stay safe and to keep these moments private.
    T-Mobile is selling most intimate information to thosewho want to take advantage of us - and our parents and relatives.
    Scum. The lowest of scum.

  • "We've heard many say they prefer more relevant ads so we're defaulting to this setting,"

    This strikes me as being comparable to claiming that people are enthusiastic about combatting terrorism. Of course they are!

    The enthusiasm for this, as with personalised adverts, wanes when people are informed of the loss of privacy they will suffer as the price for these things. In my experience even initially disinterested people have been creeped out when I have explained the tracking employed on the Internet.

    • "Our ads are carefully curated to be safe from terrorists and guaranteed to be antiracist. We know you're a good person and only terrorists and racists would want to opt-out, so you don't really want to opt out, do you?"
  • I mean,if I'm going have to be bombarded with ads anyways, I'd rather see ads for things that I actually need or might genuinely consider getting in the near future than things I don't have the slightest interest in.
    • Nah fuck that. All ads are a bane to society. You can keep your relevant ads, I’m doing all I can to not see any.

  • The whole "we need to track you to figure out what's relevant to you" is absolute BS. The companies know what's relevant to the user according to the exact page the user is visiting.

    - Visiting a New York Times article about the effects of cryptocurrency mining on GPU pricing? The ads should be about Newegg video card sales. THAT'S relevant
    - Visiting an IIHS article on AV safety? Advertise Waymo or Tesla. Again, relevant.
    - Visiting any page about gambling? Hock the local casino. Once more, relevant.
    - Visitin

  • Get rid of your smartphones and you won't have to put up with this bullshit anymore.
    Or if you insist on using smartphones then switch carriers.
  • I've just wasted the better part of an hour trying to "opt out". Don't waste your time with that; Even the customer service reps profess to have know knowledge of this, nor of how to opt out. What I'm going to do instead is send a US mail letter direct to the President of T-Mobile, certified, return receipt requested (so I will have legal proof) to opting out and telling him what I think of this decision to go into the "pimping" business and taking the low road "testing businesses' appetite for informati

  • 1. Log in to your account @ Sprint.com
    2. Click on "My Account" in the upper right and select "Preferences" from the drop-down menu.
    3. Under the heading "Things I can manage online - account", click on "Manage advertising and analytics preferences"
    4. Scroll down through the pop-up and you'll see the device(s) on your account.
    5. For each device, click it and select your preferences.
    6. Click the yellow "Save" button at the bottom left.
    7. Close the popup and log out.

  • calls I get are unsolicited marketing calls. I haven't installed any apps on my phone (1+ years old), generally don't use most(just calls and text) of the garbage apps they install on phones and generally never answer any incoming calls unless it is expected. Actually, my phone just sits in my brief case most of the time powered off.
    The commercial internet and cell phones are on the verge of becoming more of a mandatory nuisance than a helpful tool for business and general users.

    The more invasive trash t

  • What are these "ads" of which you speak? OK, even my feature phone has a browser and WiFi, but I almost never use them because I'm not interested in screen-time when I'm away from my desk. Now get off my lawn.

  • Open the mobile app -> More -> Advertising & analytics -> toggle both to "off."

  • I bet the survey didn't include the option of "don't show me any ads, fuckwit"

  • Let's see if Biden's enlightened whiz kids actually do anything about this kind of consumer abuse, or whether they just focus their attention on censorship and "anti-racism."

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