That's nice of our corporate overlords. They will even, after due hassle and harassment, allow our data to be transmitted free of intentional modification.
Clearly we need less regulation to make sure this sane business thrives.
Who gave them permission to insert the cookies into our traffic in the first place? Hopefully whatever net neutrality law passes, bans carriers from interfering in such a way with the user's traffic or from tracking the users in any other way.
Pretty sure they were going with the "beg for forgiveness" option. They certainly have enough money and lawyers to go do whatever they want in the name of profit.
Verizon is still giving out misinformation on this. A support representative confirmed to me in writing today that "As of February 1, 2015, Verizon Wireless will not send an identifier to third parties." However, it's still being sent, and a higher-up representative said later that a third-party identifier will currently always be sent, and there's no known timeframe for availability of an opt-out program.
I'm of a different mindset than to believe that this can be legislated away or fixed in any part of the transit.
We need to work toward (and we have nearly achieved) a situation where our endpoints are strong and intelligent enough that no manipulation of this sort is possible.
This issue is entirely about connecting to an untrusted endpoint. No endpoint-based solution is possible. This has to be dealt with by ensuring that the transit provider won't sell you out.
