Verizon Offered to Install Marketers' Apps Directly on Subscribers' Phones

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How many of you guys out there use Verizon? How many of you, Verizon customer or not, would put up with this crap?

The wireless carrier has offered to install big brands' apps on its subscribers' home screens, potentially delivering millions of downloads, according to agency executives who have considered making such deals for their clients. But that reach would come at a cost: Verizon was seeking between $1 and $2 for each device affected, executives said.
 
Sure they want to give me a free phone with free service, put anything on the phone they want. If I'm paying for my service then forget about it. More reasons to buy unlocked so the phone is yours and you can move as soon as they pull this crap.
 
This is why I can't wait for the new Google phones to come out so I can switch to Project Fi.
 
This would result in the immediate cancellation of my month to month service.
 
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cageymaru said:
This is why I can't wait for the new Google phones to come out so I can switch to Project Fi.
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I am currently on Google Fi now and I can say I have been pretty happy with the service. Monthly bill has been around $40 for what I use to pay $70+ for at T-Mobile. The only issue I can complain about on the services is they need to work on the phone selecting the best provider for the area you are in. T-Mobile has the best signal at my house and at the office and for some reason it will out of the blue switch me to Sprint at my office which has one bar. Not a big deal cause you can force it to switch back to T-mobile easily, but it is annoying.

As far as Verizon dumping paid ads/apps on phones. I can see this if they either offer a free phone and discounted service or a lease type deal for your phone. There is no way in hell that it will be legal for them to dump stuff on a phone that you own and if they push it otherwise. They will get sued to the moon. Bloat pre-installed is one thing, but pushing ads or paid apps on your phone anytime without your consent is no different than a company coming on your property and putting up billboards without your consent. At least the latter you can sit on your porch and shoot at them while they are trying to doing it.
 
This is one of the reasons I buy phones that work across multiple carriers- ie: Google Nexus or the iPhone.
 
Well this sucks. I'm a long time Verizon subscriber and am really happy with the plans and service. Hope they don't start too much of this shit.
 
More good ideas from Lowell Suck-My-Cock-You-Miserable-Fucking-Consumer McAdam and crew. Hope that shitbag gets ahold of some tainted shellfish and goddamn dies.
 
/usr/sbin said:
More good ideas from Lowell Suck-My-Cock-You-Miserable-Fucking-Consumer McAdam and crew. Hope that shitbag gets ahold of some tainted shellfish and goddamn dies.
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LMAO. Man, what a death wish, hahaha.

I forget the dude's name...I know its something with an L, but I think out of all the mobile carrier CEO's, that T-Mobile fella has got it down. Would I switch to T-Mobile? Probably not. Like most of the US, I'm happy taking it from AT&T even though I don't consent.
 
Nope, no way I'd pay to have that. I dropped all my Verizon lines except for one UDP. Everything else has been moved to Cricket...still digging those referral credits and effectively free service (including an unlimited LTE data line).
 
Now that I read the "article", it's not even confirmed if Verizon is even going to do this.

It's all unnamed 'agency sources' speculating on a 'what-if' or 'I heard this...'-type talks.

What shoddy writing. The only two names dropped in the entire article were basically just professionals from the industry weighing in on the possibility but not even in any way related to the actual goings-on of the supposed deal.

What click bait horse shit.
 
Sonicks said:
Now that I read the article, it's not even confirmed if Verizon is even going to do this.

It's all unnamed 'agency sources' speculating on a 'what-if' or 'I heard this...'-type talks.

What shoddy writing. The only two names dropped in the entire article were basically just professionals from the industry weighing in on the possibility but not even in any way related to the actual goings-on of the supposed app install. Click bait nonsense...
Click to expand...

The idea is out there now. Now we wait and see who decides to pull this silly bullshit.
 
meh -- either way I'm glad I ditched them and got projectFi from google -- been the easiest/cheapest/best experience with any provider yet.
 
i have family members which I visit a lot that can only get Verizon :( . 1 or 2 miles in any direction anything else you want. The irony, 'getting Verizon' means 0 1 or 2 bars.
 
I have a Windows 10 Mobile phone, guess that will not be happening to me. :D
 
Verizon MVNOs are the way to go..I switched from Verizon proper to Total Wireless (part of the huge Net10/Straight Talk/TracFone family) and went from suffering trying to keep my data use to under 2GB to getting the same quality of service I get with Verizon but with 2.5X the data all for $10 less a month..The crazy thing is that my data speeds are actually faster, which makes no sense but I'll gladly take it!
 
Which is why the first thing I always do on every phone I get is root it, freeze or remove every app I don't like (especially every Verizon installed app), freeze OTA updates, disable app updates, and then setup firewall rules to block any leakage from those few apps I do have on my phone. Actually, I don't even remember the last time I installed an app from the Play Store -- most of what I use are specific versions of apps that I always just reload from the APK's.

Honestly, over half of the stuff I do to configure my phone is done using SSH straight from the shell prompt. Yes, I'm weird.
 
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ManofGod said:
I have a Windows 10 Mobile phone, guess that will not be happening to me. :D
Click to expand...

True, Microsoft themselves will be pushing the malvertising apps to your phone's home screen. No way will they let Verizon get in on a piece of the pie.
 
These fucking twats, I have unlimited and have for nearly a decade and pay about 270.00 for 3 phones. Now I don't use that much data often but occasionally I will go out of town and I can use a couple hundred gig.. now I find out you are now down to 100gb max and they are also entertaining this crap. In addition 800x3 for phones every year so another 2400.00, I need to get rid of these fucks/
 
shit like this, and obnoxious carrier branding, and uninstallable preloaded junk apps I'll never use, is why I only buy Nexus phones these days. (and also why I am very disappointed in Windows 10)
 
ManofGod said:
I have a Windows 10 Mobile phone, guess that will not be happening to me. :D
Click to expand...

I don't know about that.

My desktop Windows 10 install keeps installing effing candy crush, and won't let me remove tons of stuff I don't want. If it isn't affecting their mobile OS yet, it will soon enough.
 
If it does happen, I imagine someone will put out a "block Verizon's BS" app.
 
SGTGimpy said:
I am currently on Google Fi now and I can say I have been pretty happy with the service. Monthly bill has been around $40 for what I use to pay $70+ for at T-Mobile. The only issue I can complain about on the services is they need to work on the phone selecting the best provider for the area you are in. T-Mobile has the best signal at my house and at the office and for some reason it will out of the blue switch me to Sprint at my office which has one bar. Not a big deal cause you can force it to switch back to T-mobile easily, but it is annoying.

As far as Verizon dumping paid ads/apps on phones. I can see this if they either offer a free phone and discounted service or a lease type deal for your phone. There is no way in hell that it will be legal for them to dump stuff on a phone that you own and if they push it otherwise. They will get sued to the moon. Bloat pre-installed is one thing, but pushing ads or paid apps on your phone anytime without your consent is no different than a company coming on your property and putting up billboards without your consent. At least the latter you can sit on your porch and shoot at them while they are trying to doing it.
Click to expand...

I don't see this being illegal just something that isn't liked. This really isn't different from the games that Steam decides to add to your library because they are the free weekend game.

mdburkey said:
True, Microsoft themselves will be pushing the malvertising apps to your phone's home screen. No way will they let Verizon get in on a piece of the pie.
Click to expand...

somebody would have to develop apps for it first. ;)
 
bugleyman said:
This. I can't imagine why they believe anyone NOT on contract would sit still for this sort of thing.
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The sad sad reality is 90% would see the app and just go about their day... Dont delude yourself, your average consumer dont give a single fuck. Hell just sit down and look at what comes preloaded on Verizon branded phones vs other carriers to begin with! You would think that would have hurt them but no, still #1.
 
Disposed said:
The sad sad reality is 90% would see the app and just go about their day... Dont delude yourself, your average consumer dont give a single fuck. Hell just sit down and look at what comes preloaded on Verizon branded phones vs other carriers to begin with! You would think that would have hurt them but no, still #1.
Click to expand...

sadly I have to agree, while a few people will get pissed here, overall the public doesn't care. At the end of the day they will just remove it and go about their day as if nothing happen.
 
I was on Verizon for 7 years until last month, I switched to Google's project fi. By far the best cell service I've ever had, just need them to work on that nationwide wifi so my data graph stays below 1% use.
 
It's sad how companies will screw over their paying customers who spend $50/mo and up over one or two dollars.

Just the other month, Sprint just arbitrarily sent me a text saying I would no longer be receiving paper billing. They said it was part of their "green initiative" and as a side effect they'd also save themselves a few million per month. Except... they have no problem spending several times that amount in mailings and advertising.
 
rudedog said:
Sure they want to give me a free phone with free service, put anything on the phone they want. If I'm paying for my service then forget about it. More reasons to buy unlocked so the phone is yours and you can move as soon as they pull this crap.
Click to expand...

This is exactly why I dropped cable. I was sick of paying $80+ a month to be fed an endless stream of advertisements.
 
I'm very worried about this. As someone that has a verizon company phone, I can't do things that I normally do to phones such as Unlock/Root and installing a custom rom. Hopefully my company wouldn't stand for that BS and tell Verizon if they want their business they can't send that junk to our phones.
 
Scizyr said:
I was on Verizon for 7 years until last month, I switched to Google's project fi. By far the best cell service I've ever had, just need them to work on that nationwide wifi so my data graph stays below 1% use.
Click to expand...

I made the exact same switch a couple of months ago.

Phone bill went from $90 to $25-$30 per month, and thus far I've only been out of service area once with Fi, in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut, near Uconn Storrs. To be fair, Verizon's service was pretty shitty there too, but I used to have at least one bar.

Other than that, my service has been equivalent to Verizon, and since I am a low data user (between 500mb and a gig per month) it winds up being MUCH cheaper too. Very happy with it.

I actually have BETTER phone and SMS reception at work, because it routes these automatically over my work Wifi instead of using mobile data, when available.

(the first floor of our building is in a notorious dead zone for all carriers)

My understanding is that since Fi uses the best available of either Sprint or Tmobiles networks, in highly populated areas where their networks are decent, you would usually get equivalent or maybe even better signal than Verizon, but that in more sparsely populated areas where Tmobile and Sprint are both a little weak, you would likely get worse coverage than Verizon.

I rarely leave densely populated areas, so it's not an issue for me.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I made the exact same switch a couple of months ago.

Phone bill went from $90 to $25-$30 per month, and thus far I've only been out of service area once with Fi, in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut, near Uconn Storrs. To be fair, Verizon's service was pretty shitty there too, but I used to have at least one bar.

Other than that, my service has been equivalent to Verizon, and since I am a low data user (between 500mb and a gig per month) it winds up being MUCH cheaper too. Very happy with it.

I actually have BETTER phone and SMS reception at work, because it routes these automatically over my work Wifi instead of using mobile data, when available.

(the first floor of our building is in a notorious dead zone for all carriers)

My understanding is that since Fi uses the best available of either Sprint or Tmobiles networks, in highly populated areas where their networks are decent, you would usually get equivalent or maybe even better signal than Verizon, but that in more sparsely populated areas where Tmobile and Sprint are both a little weak, you would likely get worse coverage than Verizon.

I rarely leave densely populated areas, so it's not an issue for me.
Click to expand...
I use these sometimes when I'm in low population density, usually with positive benefits.

Force Jump to Sprint: *#*#34777#*#*

Force Jump to T-Mobile: *#*#34866#*#*

Force Jump to Next Carrier: *#*#346398#*#*

Turn On Auto Switch: *#*#342886#*#*

Repair Bad Activation: *#*#34963#*#*

Current Network Info: *#*#344636#*#*

Source: Google Groups
 
Scizyr said:
I use these sometimes when I'm in low population density, usually with positive benefits.

Force Jump to Sprint: *#*#34777#*#*

Force Jump to T-Mobile: *#*#34866#*#*

Force Jump to Next Carrier: *#*#346398#*#*

Turn On Auto Switch: *#*#342886#*#*

Repair Bad Activation: *#*#34963#*#*

Current Network Info: *#*#344636#*#*

Source: Google Groups
Click to expand...

Good to know. I always assumed auto-switch was on by default?
 
Exavior said:
I don't see this being illegal just something that isn't liked. This really isn't different from the games that Steam decides to add to your library because they are the free weekend game.
Click to expand...

Not the same thing. Does steam auto install that freebie game on your computer? No. It is just listed in your games temporarily for the weekend deal, then it is removed. It never once was forced onto my private property that I own. Verizon is wanting to force the app to install on your phone in which you own, and have it display it on your main screen whether you want it or not.
 
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