Verizon to pay $7.4M to settle FCC investigation into customer information being used for marketing [View all]

[freshwest]

The FCC said the payment will be the largest such in the agency’s history for settling an investigation related to the privacy of telephone customers’ personal information.

BY Michael Sorrentino - September 3, 2014

...According to the FCC, the agency alleges the company was using the information without first providing customers with a required notice or obtaining their consent for several years.

"Beginning as early as 2006, Verizon failed to generate the required opt-out notices to approximately two million of the company's customers," says an adopting order from the agency released Wednesday. "These failures deprived those customers of information about Verizon's marketing practices and its customers' right to deny Verizon permission to access or use their personal data to market new Verizon services to those customers."

The FCC said the payment, which is going to the U.S. Treasury, will be the largest such payment in the agency’s history for settling an investigation related to the privacy of telephone customers’ personal information.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/verizon-pay-7-4m-settle-fcc-privacy-investigation-article-1.1926966

Seems a straightforward case of not respecting their customers. Don't know how the figure of $7.4M was decided upon.

Big thing is they have to stop doing this. Because of mean old regulators.