Verizon Reportedly Using App to Secretly Track Customer Browsing History, Phone Calls, and More

Verizon customers take note. The wireless carrier’s “Custom Experience” in its My Verizon app is doing more than just personalizing a customer’s experience. The app secretly collects personal and private information as it strives to deliver the customer’s relevant “product and service recommendations.”

How does Verizon determine what a customer may like? According to a report in Input, Verizon’s Custom Experience and its Custom Experience Plus are designed to deliver personalized information. The wireless carrier gleans this information from the customer using their phone. The app tracks the websites the customer visits, the apps they use, the calls they make, and more. Such intrusive tracking is concerning, but the situation gets worse.

Verizon says on its website the Custom Experience program is opt-out only. Customers are automatically enrolled and can turn off the feature if they don’t want the wireless carrier tracking their phone usage. The custom experience is less intrusive, tracking only websites a customer visits and the apps they open.

The Custom Experience Plus program is more intrusive, following not only websites and apps but also device location and the phone numbers a customer calls. Verizon claims that the Custom Experience Plus program is opt-in, but many people report they are enrolled in the Custom Experience and Custom Experience Plus without their consent.

How to Disable ‘Custom Experience’

1. Customers can disable this tracking by opening the My Verizon app and going to its settings by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner.
2. Scroll to the privacy settings and make sure the toggle for Custom Experience and Custom Experience Plus are both disabled.
3. Accounts with multiple lines will need to change this setting on each line.