Today's agreement (called a "consent decree") curbs (but doesn't end) the UIDH/supercookie program. Sharing a customer's UIDH with other companies to deliver target ads will be opt-in: Verizon will have to ask a customer's permission before doing it. This is a good thing for privacy: At least one of Verizon's partners used the UIDH to identify phone owners and re-install its tracking cookies that the owners had deleted from their mobile browsers. (Verizon did begin offering an opt-out program last summer.) But by default, Verizon can still use your UIDH internally, including for its two advertising programs—Relevant Mobile Advertising (RMA) and Verizon Selects. The telecom company is branching beyond just being the pipes for moving data to becoming an advertising company in its own right. That's likely the main reason it bought AOL in June 2015—not to get its dial-up service, its instant messenger app, or the Huffington Post—but to acquire AOL's online advertising technologies.