This is customer experience done way wrong. Being so creepy about data collection that even Facebook would blush is a high bar to clear but apparently that has now come to pass:
I can’t think of anyone who would want Verizon to help curate their music selection or send them targeted ads. It’s clear the primary goal of this program is to collect customer information at a level that would make Facebook blush, something all-to-familiar for telecom companies.
I can see how this decision came about. Marketers are freaking out about the imminent deprecation of third party cookies and needed to figure their survival strategy. So the idea is to get customers to provide information of their own volition with the understanding there would be some value rendered in return. Presumably, this makes us all comfortable with over-sharing or so the consumer survey data would have us believe.
So armed with such irrefutable wisdom, Verizon decided to be the arbiter of decision making on behalf of the customer, proceed with the bold presumption that they could actually provide "value" and opted the customer in by default - creating a so-called "frictionless experience". Talk about galactic leaps of faith at every turn.
Many of their customers would not become aware of any of this and the data collection could proceed apace. If the stink around this gets to noxious levels there is always opt-out and a public apology to set that right. Earning customer distrust in spades in the process as if providing deplorable customer service was not good enough. Next time I get an email notifying me some or the other of my service providers is changing their privacy policy, I do need to read their insufferable nonsense end to end or I will be opted-in into such dubious schemes.
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