Verizon Wireless is stealthily tracking its subscribers' Internet usage using so-called "super cookies" that alter user traffic and insert unique identifiers that can't be controlled by the customer.

The super cookies allow Verizon to monitor and keep tabs on which websites its customers visit, and they can't be erased by the user, or avoided by setting a browser to private or incognito.

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"Verizon users might want to start looking for another provider," warns The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit civil liberties organization. It says the wireless operator has been "silently modifying its users' web traffic on its network to inject a cookie-like tracker ... sent to every unencrypted website a Verizon customer visits from a mobile device."

The EFF adds that the super cookie allows third-party advertisers and websites to assemble a detailed, permanent profile of visitors' Internet-browsing habits without their knowledge or consent. 

"While we're concerned about Verizon's own use of the header," said EFF. "We're even more worried about what it allows others to find out about Verizon users."

At the moment, the only way users can avoid being tracked by the super cookie is if they are connecting their phones to the Internet via Wi-Fi, or using Google's mobile Chrome.

Although Verizon has already been keeping tabs on customers' Web usage for two years, it was only last week that Verizon's use of the super cookie was first noticed, according to DSL Reports.

The Unique Identifier Header, or UIDH, broadcasts a user's identity across the Internet, where it remains and can be abused - even if the user opts out of Verizon's programs.

"The X-UIDH header functions as a temporary super cookie," says Stanford lawyer and computer scientist Jonathan Mayer. "Any website can easily track a user, regardless of cookie blocking and other privacy protections."

"In short, Verizon is packaging and selling subscriber information, acting as a data broker on real-time advertising exchanges."

Mayer says that although Verizon offers privacy settings, they don't prevent sending the X-UIDH header. "All they do, seemingly, is prevent Verizon from selling information about a user," he says.

The move by Verizon is a complete reversal from a pledge the company made before a U.S. Senate hearing in 2008 that it would not track its customers Internet usage unless given explicit permission by the user.

"Verizon believes that before a company captures certain Internet-usage data . . . it should obtain meaningful, affirmative consent from consumers," said Thomas J. Tauke, executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications.

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