Vodafone & Deutsche Telekom recently started trials with Trustpid to reintroduce persistent user tracking of their internet browsing with view to selling browsing history to advertisers. Although Vodafone claims there is nothing to worry about,
privacy officials are especially concerned about the recent involvement of network operators. Privacy advocates call it the return of the Super Cookie. This would be a massive step backward in creating an independent web where the privacy of internet
users is respected. With TrustPid, Vodafone assigns a fixed ID to a user based on someone's phone number. Website operators would then be able to call up this identifier to exactly see what websites this user has visited and create a profile to
display targeted ads. Recent privacy laws are currently challenging Google and Apple's current solutions for selling users' browser history to advertising. Many web browsers block third-party cookies, and even Google Chrome is phasing out
third-party cookies next year. Apple is cracking down on user tracking, costing Facebook billions in revenue. It has become more challenging to monetize customer data, so the advertising market is looking for new solutions to tap into. They do not
want to go back to non-personalized advertising, so they are pushing the frontier to see what's still possible. The Trustpid trial is an example of this. See
further details from blog.simpleanalytics.com | 
