Straightening Out a Ridiculous Situation, Verizon is NOT Remotely Removing Apps From Your Phone

Some clown in the tech world started pushing around a story yesterday, suggesting that Verizon is “entering user phones” to remove “apps it doesn’t like” without your permission.  He goes into some theory about how Big Red is “remotely” browsing through your phone’s app catalog and hand picking the ones it deems a problem so that it can then remove them.  He has clearly patched together 3 or 4 different stories to come up with this conclusion and is either 100% clueless or is trying to cause a stir because this story is completely false.

Let me just reassure you, that Verizon IS NOT REMOTELY REMOVING APPS FROM YOUR PHONE.

So what is actually going on?  Well, you all know that 4G LTE customers have been enjoying a free hotspot promotion for 2-3 months now, right?  Ok, so the newest HTC Thunderbolt update simply removed that promotion.  That’s it.  No apps have been removed, no remote accessing is going on, and they sure as hell aren’t doing anything without your permission.  The promotion came to an end on July 6, and through the latest update, they included a new service which asks users to sign up for a tethering plan.  Just. Like. Every. Other. Phone. Already. Does.

Sure, they’ve blocked access to tethering apps from the market, but they aren’t entering your phone to remove them if you already have them installed.  Talk about highly illegal?  The only company that has the ability to do that is Google, and they only do it in the most drastic of situations that involve something like malware.

So again, please ignore the story from the ill-informed tech writer who is trying to cause a stir.  Your privacy is safe – Verizon just wants you to pay for tethering now (which is an argument for another day).