Opt Out of Verizon’s Personal Info Sharing

Verizon calls it CPNI or Customer Proprietary Network Information. If you've got online billing, you're not going to get the legal pamphlet that tells you that you have 45 days to tell them not to share your information. What kind of information? Stuff like:

"services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info. They promise to only share this with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies.' It will definitely not be shared with 'unrelated third parties' ... unless, perhaps that third party pays Verizon to become an affiliate, whatever the heck 'affiliate' means," (hyperorg.com)

Very good stuff.

I just gave the 800 number (1-800-333-9956) a call and of course it's not working. Will try again tomorrow. Apparently it's somewhere in the online billing site, but I haven't found it yet.UPDATE 3/8/09: I just called and the phone number works. According to robo-voice, if you want to check your CPNI status you need to go to you account on verizonwireless.com then sign up for My Verizon - whatever that is. Just call.

REFERENCES:
Tales of data pirates: Opting out of Verizon’s open-ended sharing, http://www.hyperorg.com
Verizon Customers - Just Say No!, by LIDIJA DAVIS, NYT, March 7, 2009