Verizon's Pervasive, Opt-Out 'Supercookie' Trackers Join Forces With AOL Ad Network

It appears that Verizon's supercookie is indeed "super", as we're still unable to escape it. Earlier this year, Verizon came under fire for making use of a cookie that works even when offline, and was impossible to disable. After a bit of prodding, the company decided to let users disable it, but not without getting them to jump through some hoops.

The reason this "cookie" is so notable is because it can send back a wealth of information to Verizon and its partners. This goes as far as being able to identify which apps you're using on your mobile phone, and where you use them. Simply put, the amount of information that can be gathered on you is quite outrageous, and the fact that it can do all this by default is appalling.

It might seem a little ironic that Verizon has a "Chief Privacy Officer", but it does. That's Karen Zacharia, and she hopes to smooth things over by promising that only a "limited" number of partners will be making use of the information, and it's restricted to AOL and Verizon use only.

It seems unlikely that anyone who cares about privacy at all is going to want the data even going that far - to partners we're not even informed about. Beyond that, are we really supposed to believe that the same company that pulled a stunt just earlier this year that involved sharing our information with a third-party (Turn Inc.), is willing to go to the great lengths required to enforce how our data is used when it's no longer in its hands?

Oy. When Verizon snatched AOL up earlier this year, we really should have seen this coming. Hopefully it will backtrack on this as it did with other supercookie-related goings-on earlier this year.