Charter ISP will track every site its users visit
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.Link...
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.
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This calls for a bot that just follows as many links as possible, filling up the logs with absolute nonsense.
Anyone who runs ads on his website will probably be very happy to learn that the banners on his/her site will be replaced by Charter, thus gouging him/her of any potential revenue.
I smell a lawsuit.
“The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising,” he said.
I thought the fundamental economic model on the Internet was porn.
OK lets start with full disclosure of what exacly they are collecting, what they intend to do with my information, who they are disclosing it to and how they intend to protect my anonymity and privacy.
Add a penalty free opt-in plan not the "consent to this or walk away" plan outlined above. In exchange for my consent to this never ending "survey", I want a fair cut of any cash they get.
Oh, and I would demand the option to temporarily or permanently opt out of this scheme anytime I feel like it.
I think that's reasonable...
“The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising”
And most people try not to engage in it, or go to lengths to block the ads, or obfuscate their info so it's unreliable.
I will *almost* never click an ad. If I want to find more about a product, I'll google the info in the ad instead, but I won't engage in the system.
Sometimes however, if I've benefitted from a site (like they helped me find something I've been searching for) and they need the clicks, I'll do it out of a sense of debt. But that is the ONLY reason.
If advertisers want to guarantee my click-thrus, they will have to stop putting logos, info and web-addresses in their ads.
I can't wait until high speed internet is more ubiquitous over power lines (you get internet through your power outlets in your house, basically) and high speed wide area wireless spreads and idiots like these at Charter are run out of business entirely through competition who doesn't pull stuff like this on its customers.
The United States is already embarrassingly behind other countries in broadband adoption... we don't even hold a candle to countries like South Korea!!! And don't even get me started on how lame we are with high speed cell phones compared to other countries. Is the USA in decline or what? Oh, wait... Bush... yeah, nevermind... dumb question...
The OECD released stats around 2007 on broadband penetration. The figures put the United States at 15th among countries as of year-end 2006, down from 13th a year earlier. Even if these stats are in dispute (I doubt the are perfectly accurate) shouldn't the USA of all places be number 1? or at least 2nd or 3rd place?
Sad...
I agree with #4.
I can't speak to whether or not it is this way in all areas, but where I live, the internet companies are assigned to different areas. Which company you go with is not an option unless you are willing to relocate. I am forced to go with Charter or have no internet, while people down the road from me have no choice but Time Warner. This is the biggest reason I think they should have an opt-in/out in their contract. Not to mention that I haven't even seen anything in the mail about this yet...has this tracking already been implemented?
The only issues I see are if anything identifiable is tracked -- or if they're storing exact records ( vs doing some sort of qualitative / vector tracking ). As long as its anonymous and aggregate, who cares?
Disclaimer: I started an ad company that does aggregate statistics... but I'm also the guy who yells non-stop about user privacy rights too.
so if i'm a porn hog i'm gonna get covered in a blizzard of porn spam? wow, that might be good enough reason to stop looking at porn altogether.
but if i'm a kitchen appliance hog, i'm going to receive a deluge of blender spam? the horror....
COW,
I can't see whoever the power companies contract to run your internet through your power cables being any less pricky.
What surprises me still is that people are not utilizing anonymizing stuff already, I mean sheesh, you can get torpark a flashdrive based totally standalone version of firefox that has tor already embedded in it, to surf anonymously, if more people used anonymous encrypted surfing there wouldn't BE people like Charter thinking up things like this. Hell I want my ParanoidLinux LiveCD! Keep a fresh for games and for Feebs, Vista partition on the laptop, but have a hardended paranoid linux live CD for everything else!
And when the internet was formed advertising wasn't on the agenda, despite what Charter thinks.
This is not really unique.
I suggest you guys do a little research into a company called Phorm, who have deals with BT, Virgin and Orange in the UK to do exactly this.
That equates to around 60% of broadband users here. There's a bit of a revolt over it, thankfully, but that doesn't mean it won't happen anyway.
#8 posted by jonathan_v:
LOL... yeah, who cares? Anyone who's not as naive, that's who.
Since when do corporations do what they SAY they are going to do with our data? Look at the cozy relationship between AT&T and the Bush administration who gladly blow off our privacy rights without our consent or even the goddam law on their side. The only reason we even know about it is because some American patriots caught the goddam bastards red-handed and exposed them.
Give Charter and inch and they'll surely take a mile behind our backs. Who will make sure they don't? The Bush administration? XD Yeah, good one... good one...
BTW, before you go off on the bullshit, "well, if you're not doing anything wrong" drone... I want my privacy not because I'm a fucking terrorist, it's because I operate a legitimate business (unlike many of these assholes in D.C.) and the sites I go to and utilitize are proprietary information and I want it fucking private. That means NO prying eyes from giant anti-competitve corporations (a.k.a., our government) that could use that info against me in business. Plus, if that's your stance... I think our founding father's would probably like a cross word or two with you if they were still alive. So, pleeeaaazz don't give me that tired shit (if you were planning on it).
Maybe the corporate world you live in is here:
La la land
Here's the reality the rest of us live in:
Reality
Trust Charter? XD I don't think so!!!
"What? The land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy!"
- Rage Against The Machine
Consider this: if you have a blog and you don't have ads on it, what if this technology inserts an ad when a Charter subscriber visits it?
Sounds like they've (either Charter or NebuAd) has created an unlicensed derivative work of your blog.
Imagine your blog gets slashdotted and thousands of Charter subscribers visit your blog and see the ads. Now imagine how much Charter and NebuAd could be liable for given that statutory damages (in the US anyway [US 17 504 c 2]) are $150,000 per infringement.
Aside from the many valid moral and consumer-based arguments against this, it also opens Charter and NebuAd to a large amount of legal risk.
#10 posted by arkizzle:
I'm not sure you got my point.
Wherever there's more competition, there's "less prickliness" in general. For instance, right now there's many people who have NO affordable choice udder than Charter for broadband. So does Charter care what they think? Not really. Also, Charter knows the Bush administration could give a damn about our human rights, so they aren't going to do a damn thing about an invasion of our privacy. The Bush admin doesn't want to regulate big business because then they'd be devoid of financial kickbacks... can't have that. Anyway... I digress...
With the competition I described in my previous post, customers could show their displeasure with their pocket books right now and switch to another provider who doesn't pull this kind of crap. Hell, the competition could even advertise the fact that they take their customer's privacy seriously. If Charter sees a mass exodus, don't tell me they wouldn't ditch this crap ass plan pronto.
If history is any judge, competition breeds freedom for consumers (a.k.a. citizens) in more ways than one.
wouldn't this violate HIPPA statutes too?
If I was them I would be rather concerned over losing their common carrier status.
Once they start deep scanning packets then someone can hold them responsible for not stopping the porn your 12 yr old surfed to.
Or for not stopping the child molester that is chatting with your 10 yr old daughter.
The point is once they start looking at content then they become responsible. That's why the phone company doesn't listen in. And no one else should either without a warrant from a judge.
Ward
"Wherever there's more competition, there's "less prickliness" in general. For instance, right now there's many people who have NO affordable choice udder than Charter for broadband. So does Charter care what they think? Not really. Also, Charter knows the Bush administration could give a damn about our human rights, so they aren't going to do a damn thing about an invasion of our privacy. The Bush admin doesn't want to regulate big business because then they'd be devoid of financial kickbacks... can't have that. Anyway... I digress..."
Correct. I am a charter customer and already pay about $60/month for 10/1 service. And they apparently don't think they're getting value out of that so they want to sell my web browsing habits to a 3rd party? WTF?
This is esp. weird given that Charter, in general, has been much more protective of their users than, say, Comcast.
He claims that most of the internet is ad based anyway, so why should you care? My response is that those ads generally pay for a service so I don't have to. If they're going to start spamming me with ads, then I better not be paying a dime for access. Of course, that's not what they want to do. They want to charge exactly what they're charging now (maybe a little more, you know, to cover the costs of this added service), and then take in the additional money from ad revenue.
How's that song go? Oh, right:
"Send lawyers, guns and money...."
I'm pretty sure we can straighten 'em out....
I am a Charter customer, and got notice of this newest "enhancement" via snail mail. However, the written notice included the URL where I could opt out of the entire thing. Which I did, with no difficulty.
There's a catch even in the courtesy opt-put, however. Charter plainly states that it works once per browser, which means you must repeat the process for every browser you use. (I use 3, depending on needs and who's system has crashed.) It also only works on the identification of the computer you use - not your own Charter sign in - which means you must also repeat it for every computer on which you use any Charter product. And lastly, emptying your internet cache or clearing cookies negates the opt-out, which must then be repeated.
Hoops, hoops, hoops. I can hardly wait for someone to figure out a way to sue them.
When are we going to see the quality ad people turn to the internet? I've seen some awesome TV and print ads in my time. The potential is there for some absolutely incredible internet ads--instead, we get crappy popups and spam. When do we get the internet version of Burma Shave or the Budweiser Frogs?
materkb,
i too, begrudgingly, am a charter customer... (havent gotten the mail yet, finals week)
do you still have that url?
but either way, i've had it with that company.
$67 a month JUST for high speed internet is not at all worth it.
anyone have a better ISP they would recommend in the Glendale, CA area?
that might be good enough reason to stop looking at porn altogether.
No reason is that good. What could you be thinking?
"The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising,”
And The mainstream Internet Provider is grossly unaware that the mainstream internet user is not very happy with this economic model.
sarafenix - the URL to opt out of Charter's amusing enhancement scheme is:
www.charter.com/onlineprivacy
No suggestions on an alternate ISP in the Glendale CA area; several sisters of mine live in or near there and report ISP service is pretty universally nasty. And of course if you are using an ISP bundled with your telly service, you are utterly screwed - the monopoly system in LA dooms you to Charter in that area.