Three days after it emerged that broadband provider Charter Communications plans to begin eavesdropping on its subscribers’ web serving to build profiles for advertisers, serious questions about the technology remain unanswered — including whether it’s really possible to opt-out of the data collection.
Charter Communications, one of the largest ISPs is the country, confirmed that it’s partnering with a company called NebuAd, which pays ISPs to let it install a monitoring box on their networks to sniff customer traffic.
The plan is already drawing unwanted attention from Congressman Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), two key lawmakers in the area of telecoms.
“Any service to which a subscriber does not affirmatively subscribe and that can result in the collection of information about the web-related habits and interests of a subscriber […] raises substantial questions,” the pair wrote in a letter to Charter’s CEO…
The legality of eavesdropping on Americans’ internet usage also isn’t clear. The practice could violate anti-wiretapping law…
Aside from where it’s required by law, I’m also not especially convinced about corporate concern over customer privacy.
The opt-out cookie is a joke–if you use their DNS all the out-out cookie does is redirect you instead to a fake IE error page.. and I mean, how is a non-HTTP program suppose to send a cookie anyway?
So I highly doubt that this out-out cookie for this new program will do any good either. They’ll still spy on you and sell the data to 3rd parties.
A great “enhancement” indeed… still won’t lower my bill
Best part… We pay monthly fees to subsidize the eavesdropping. Duh.
Tsk, tsk… such pre-9/11 thinking.
>>The practice could violate
>>anti-wiretapping law…
I didn’t realize that we still HAD anti-wiretapping laws. Or were those pesky warrants etc., only waived for our OverLords, in the name of national security?
G R E E D – the only motivation left in America. Business ethics and customer satisfaction be damned in pursuit of another few pennies.
Make enough people aware of this threat to personal privacy and perhaps Charter and NebuAd will decide it’s not worth the bad publicity.
So the government needs laws and warrants to do this but there is a question if this is legal for corporations to do this?
Is this really a question?
And yes there is a difference from an office monitoring their network and a private citizen who purchases internet access from a local ISP.
If this isn’t illegal, there’s an implication here there are no limits whatsoever when it comes to corporate wiretapping.
It seems to me, it would also be wise to appreciate most corporations are international in nature and not law-abiding ‘U.S. citizens’ with a belief in any kind of freedom at all, let alone privacy and the freedom not to be stalked and harassed endlessly by advertisers.
Charter is not an international corporation. They do have really poor service, however. My suggestion, get a new ISP… given that they don’t have contracts.
#8 Easier said than done in areas where there’s essentially no competition. I have Charter and Qwest for choices and Qwest is half the speed.
# 8 – Jeff
“Charter is not an international corporation.”
To my mind, all corporations are international corporations, no matter where their headquarters happens to be located.
Since their sole raison d’ĂŞtre is to provide a profitable return on their stockholder’s investments – and their stockholders can be anyone from anywhere on Terra – by pretty well any definition, they’re all international.
Charter is already the second to worst ISP provider in the nation according to customer satisfaction. All it would take is a little push and they will fold right over.
Make decisions with your wallets and cancel your service. If everyone did this then competition would kick-in and you will eventually get better service for less money.
Keep consuming crap and manufacturers will keep providing crap.
Charter is pretty much it for something above 3 mbit/s. Then its AT&T (DSL).. and they’re not that great either.
So while I have two choices–they’re still bad choices either way [hurls]
BigCarbonFoot, my choices are also Charter ($50) and Qwest($25), but you left out 2 other choices: Dial-up($5) or absolutely nothing($0).
Have you ever heard of a postage stamp, radio, the library?
I grew up during the beginning of the computer age so I know the differences of what its like to be with and without cable tv and broadband internet.
My wife and I dumped cable tv and used dialup for the last 8 years (and I’m a big techy). We found life less stressful and we banked some serious cash with the savings. If I need some speed I visit my local library for a quick download and pick up some free dvds to watch at home.
Everyone should try this for at least one year. Its refreshing, almost retreat-like.
Goodluck,
David
Try DSL.. It’s not faster on speed test, but in actual usage it keeps delivering after the period where the cable companies start throttling your downloads. Both WOW and Comcast in my area do this.
#13 – Sorry – Even 5-6 Mb is slow. I want 100Mb to the home for 25.00/mo.
#15, move to South Korea
#13
Nice solution that solves nothing. Bury our heads in the sand? Yeah thats gonna happen. Internet speed isn’t politics, people will actually care. After you get done walking to work in the snow up-hill both ways get back to us.
>>So the government needs laws and warrants
>>to do this…. ?
I guess you don’t live in the US. Here, the gummint don’t need no stinkin’ warrants, and laws were made to be broken.
Anything else, and the TERRORISTS HAVE WON.
Don’t you watch Dumbya’s speeches?
What’s needed is to OUTLAW ALL THIRD-PARTY DATABASES !!! No “Data Collection” and no selling and sharing of data for any reason !!! The Citizens Declaration of Independence from DATA THIEVES AND IDENTITY CROOKS !!! Write your Congresspersons and DEMAND AN END TO THIRD-PARTY DATABASES – WITH HEAVY CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR ANY DATA SNEAKTHEIVES !!! Any data collected by first parties should remain the property of the Citizen and NOT BE REMARKETD BY DATA THEIVES !!!
Obviously it’s time for the U.S. to declare:
The War on Data!
This will nicely compliment the continuing successes of The War on Drugs, The War on Terror, The War on Illegal Immigration, The War on Oil, The War on Obesity, The War on Crime, The War on Gay Marriage, The War on…
I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like…
🙂
I hope JimD doesn’t have a stroke.