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Vodafone’s Bid to Keep the Internet Free Could Impact Your Privacy

It’s spookily persistent, warn privacy advocates

By Mayank Sharma Mayank Sharma Freelance Tech News Reporter Writer, Reviewer, Reporter with decades of experience of breaking down complex tech, and getting behind the news to help readers get to grips with the latest buzzwords. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on June 3, 2022 01:51PM EDT Fact checked by Jerri Ledford Fact checked by Jerri Ledford Western Kentucky University Gulf Coast Community College Jerri L. Ledford has been writing, editing, and fact-checking tech stories since 1994. Her work has appeared in Computerworld, PC Magazine, Information Today, and many others. lifewire's fact checking process Tweet Share Email Tweet Share Email Internet & Security Mobile Phones Internet & Security Computers & Tablets Smart Life Home Theater & Entertainment Software & Apps Social Media Streaming Gaming Vodafone is trialing a new user tracking mechanism in Germany.The mechanism will help advertisers serve better ads, which Vodafone contends are essential to keeping the internet free.Privacy advocates feel uneasy about the mechanisms’ persistence and accuracy in tracking our online activities.
Francesco Carta fotografo / Getty Images A new mechanism for serving targeted ads is upsetting privacy advocates who fear its unprecedented level of user tracking. Telecom major Vodafone is piloting a new advertising ID system in Germany called TrustPid, which it argues will help it serve targeted ads. The new system is designed to be immune to Apple's ban on user tracking and will work even after Google retires the advertising cookie. Vodafone contends it needs to do this to generate advertising revenue and keep the internet free, while privacy advocates claim tying the tracking to individual devices will enable Vodafone to collect very specific data about people. "This is an enormous violation of user confidentiality and the expectation of privacy," Steven Harris, an open source intelligence (OSINT) specialist, told Lifewire over Twitter DMs. "The idea that this highly sensitive data could be made routinely available to marketing and analytics companies should horrify anyone who is concerned about privacy."

Free For All

TrustPid involves Vodafone assigning a fixed ID to each customer, then associating all their online activity with that ID. Harris said even when law enforcement agencies want to access this kind of targeted information about individual users, it's made to jump through several hoops because of the far-reaching consequences it has on a person's privacy. "We must accept that services we consume on the internet cost real money to deliver," Brian Chappell, chief security strategist, EMEA & APAC, at BeyondTrust, told Lifewire over email. "Some we subscribe to directly with monthly or annual payments…the rest we quietly, often silently, subscribe [to] by 'selling' our information." Chappell added that this has led to an industry of tracking people and building profiles on them to allow for ever more targeted advertising. Frank Maduri, Global VP of Sales and Business Development for LoginID, can understand TrustPid’s appeal to service providers and advertisers. "As we've seen recently with Twitter, advertisers want to ensure they are reaching unique, real people and not bots," Maduri told Lifewire over email. "We expect that advertisers will increasingly be demanding assurances that they are not paying for impressions/clicks from bots." Harris chimed in saying that, historically, the tracking industry has relied on a combination of cookies, browser fingerprints, and tracking pixels in order to better profile users. However, with careful countermeasures, privacy-conscious users can negate this tracking. He added that Apple's recent moves to curb many of the prevalent tracking mechanisms in the latest version of iOS helped ensure user privacy, even for people without the technical know-how to safeguard their interests. "It appears that Vodafone and TrustPid are proposing to trial a different method to uniquely identify users by using phone hardware," warned Harris. "Hardware-based tracking is potentially much more difficult, or perhaps even impossible, for users to protect themselves from when compared to software-based tracking."

Who Do You Trust

Further explaining the dangers, Harris said that mobile network operators are aware of the unique serial number of the SIM in the phones, the device’s unique handset identifier, and our approximate location to within a few cell towers. It needs to know these details in order to route calls to our devices. However, combining these data points together could easily create a hardware-based unique identifier that would be very persistent and scarily accurate, and reliable. Francesco Carta fotografo / Getty Images Harris continued, saying this level of tracking is extremely useful for advertisers, especially when people use mobile data, as opposed to Wi-Fi, because then the mobile network can theoretically also track their activity across all of their phone apps. "If advertising companies had access to this data, they would have far-reaching insights into which websites and apps you used and how regularly you use them, and so on," feared Harris. TrustPid's only saving grace, explains Chappell, is that it'll only share our unique IDs with websites that we've asked them to share the ID with. If the consent is withdrawn, the ID will no longer be shared. Of course, this does mean that people will need to sign into the service with the telecom operators, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom, for the time being, who we'll have to trust to maintain the link between our identity and the ID. "They will also share your information with other third parties who participate in the service, though what information will be shared isn't entirely clear," pointed out Chappell. "The lack of real information on the TrustPid website, along with a lackluster design, does little to build confidence in this new approach."
Correction 06/3/2022: Updated the position of Steven Harris in paragraph three at the person's request. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit More from Lifewire How a Supreme Court Ruling Could Radically Change the Internet How to Stop Google From Tracking Your Searches How to Stop Facebook Ads From Tracking You What Are Cookies on a Computer? How to Limit Ad Tracking on iPhone and iPad What Is a VPN? What Does Google Know About Me? What Are Digital Ethics? What is End-to-End Encryption? Google Play Store Could Still Be Serving Up Dangerous Shape-Shifting Apps Smart TV Security: What You Need to Know Google’s Third-Party Cookie Replacement Is Flawed, Experts Say Banking on Android? It Could Be More Treacherous Thanks to New Malware Your Smartphone May Be Revealing Details of Your Life No, Your Smart Speaker Isn’t Eavesdropping on You New Google Play Store Rules Could Encourage Privacy Violations Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up Newsletter Sign Up By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Cookies Settings Accept All Cookies