T-Mobile will soon put in place a new privacy policy that will allow certain types of customer information to be shared with third-party advertisers. As of April 26, 2021, all customers will automatically be included in the new program, as identified by Wall Street Newspaper. Customers who do not wish to participate will need to manually cancel the use of their account’s privacy tools.
T-Mobile’s new policy is no different from AT&T or Verizon. However, this is a turnaround for former Sprint customers. T-Mobile acknowledges in its policy change announcement that Sprint has offered a similar optionat the service instead of opt-out.
The new policy includes the same type of provisions as AT&T and Verizon for sharing user data with third-party marketers on behalf of providing the most relevant advertising. Companies say that the data they share does not reveal the individual identities of customers and that they do not share information associated with a child’s device or service.
As harmless as the carriers seem to this practice, it is something that people are increasingly suspicious of. In response, companies like Google are working to make their data collection and sharing practices less invasive.
If you don’t like to know that your operator shares data about you with advertisers, it’s easy to disable these services. AT&T customers can opt out of third party data sharing by accessing their account privacy controls. Likewise, Verizon customers can log into My Verizon to cancel what it calls “Relevant mobile advertising”.