AOL advertisers to access Verizon's location data

Wireless telecoms provider, Verizon, plans to share users' location data with AOL advertisers as part of its goal to build a vast mobile marketing business. Verizon purchased AOL last year with the aim of combining the two into a single advertising behemoth, capable of rivalling Facebook and Google; these two combined control 50% of the mobile ad market, a figure expected to grow. Verizon has already shared data on users' browsing behaviour to improve the focus of AOL's targeted ads. According to the Wall Street Journal, a small pilot group of advertisers can access Verizon’s data about mobile users’ locations, to show if a person visited a brand’s store after viewing an ad. Concerns have been raised about privacy and data protection and freedom of information, with a recommendation that Verizon obtains customer permission before sharing tracking data with a third party.

It's been clear since Verizon acquired AOL last year that the end goal was to combine the two companies' data and technology to build a massive advertising business. Verizon already made clear that it would share the data it had on user's browsing habits to improve AOL's ad targeting. Now The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a small group of AOL test customers can tap into Verizon data "about cellphone users’ locations to show if anyone went to a brand’s store after seeing an ad." AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has been out-selling clients on the idea that they should advertise with AOL so they can leverage this ability when it comes online for all clients later this year.

Sharing this kind of data on consumers might get Verizon into hot water. It was already fined $1.35 million by the FCC for its use of "supercookies." As part of its settlement with the agency, Verizon also agreed to get customers permission before sharing tracking data with outside companies, or even with sites owned by AOL. The FCC has also proposed some new rules around how much data ISPs can share with outside parties without getting a customer's permission.

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According to The WSJ report, Armstrong offered advertising clients a pitch that leaned heavily on location data. "Imagine," he said, "if a hotel chain supplied Verizon with a database of its frequent guests. That could be matched up with data on Verizon’s more than 100 million wireless customers, plus AOL’s own data, to target guests with ads for promotional offers. Later, the hotel’s sales data and the telecom giant’s customer data could be cross-referenced to see how many of those people subsequently visited the hotel."