Verizon for years violated its customers’ privacy by using their personal information to market them services without giving them the option to opt out… and it will only cost the company $7.4 million.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Communications Commission has fined Verizon $7.4 million for using roughly 2 million customers’ personal information for marketing purposes without informing them that it was doing so and without letting them know they could opt out of the program.
A Verizon spokesman tells the Journal that these 2 million customers should have received notices that they could opt out of the company’s marketing program but for some reason were never given the message.
“It did not involve a data breach or an unauthorized disclosure of customer information to third parties,” the spokesman explains.