From Saul Hansell's Bits blog at the NYT:
Charter Communications, the fourth-largest cable system in the United States, has started telling its high-speed Internet customers that it is going to keep track of every site they visit on the Web.
…
I suggested to [senior vice president for product management and strategy] Ted Schremp that there are likely to be a fair number of customers who don't consider having their Internet activities tracked to be an enhancement.
He responded several ways. He said that Charter convened focus groups of customers in two cities and found that most didn't object when the program was explained to them. (A key aspect of the NebuAd system is that it claims not to record any personally identifiable information about users. Rather, it associates each user's behavior with 1,000 categories of interest to advertisers.)
He offered his personal view that the system is harmless and well within the norms of the Internet these days. "The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising," he said.
