You may need to log into a FREE account from the Wash. Post to read the full article. Don’t like that? Complaining? We’ll just have to start logging your activities. Can’t have malcontents on OUR Interwebitubes. Oops. Sorry. I mean we’ll do it for the advertisers.
The online behavior of a small but growing number of computer users in the United States is monitored by their Internet service providers, who have access to every click and keystroke that comes down the line.
The companies harvest the stream of data for clues to a person’s interests, making money from advertisers who use the information to target their online pitches.
[…]But at least 100,000 U.S. customers are tracked this way, and service providers have been testing it with as many as 10 percent of U.S. customers, according to tech companies involved in the data collection.
Although common tracking systems, known as cookies, have counted a consumer’s visits to a network of sites, the new monitoring, known as “deep-packet inspection,” enables a far wider view — every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search entered. Every bit of data is divided into packets — like electronic envelopes — that the system can access and analyze for content.
Sounds like google ad sense 2.0 . If they know I go to a lot of motorcycle sites, i’ll see a lot of ads for motorcycle parts and such. What’s the difference between that and going to a cycle site, and seeing the ads there? Maybe I go get a recipe, and see “oh, tires are 50% off. Maybe i’ll get one.” Let them make their ads. I can always just turn off said ads.
Well I’m not paranoid yet since I use someone else’s PC to access this site.
Sounds like a good deal to me. Maybe someday they’ll notice I don’t open any “Russian Brides” email and someday it will stop coming??? Same with thank you notes from my local politicians?
This seems terrifying to me. Am I the only one who has a problem with advertisers having access to the contents of my emails? Web traffic to non-encrypted sites in one thing.
I know they claim that no personally identifiable information is available, but that just does not make sense. They have to be able to track the traffic back to a user or there is no way to provide an ad. Also, there may be any number of identifiable pieces of information in an email – including user ids and passwords.
Scary in my opinion.
The ultimate goal of advertisers is to be able to crawl inside our brains and find the precise buttons that will trigger a purchase response. If they can discover that you were a neglected middle child in a large family and they can use that information to flip a psychological switch to influence your purchasing behavior, then they’ve had a very good day at the office. That’s their job, and the very future of Consumerism depends on it.
To allow any third party access, for cash, to the nexus through which all our internet communications must pass sets a precedent that could pervert the whole concept of the internet and reintroduce the old model of, ‘you have what we want you to have, when we want you to have it’, a version of TV with a keyboard attached.
Companies offering technology similar to Phorm boast to ISPs about their ability to create ‘walled-gardens’, herding their customers around a sub-section of the net, maximising returns.
How soon will it be before ISPs start offering bundles of ‘channels’ at tiered prices? Charging a premium to access popular, or bandwidth hungry sites. ‘Want to access YouTube? Ah, you’ll need our Gold Star package for that sir.’
As has been pointed out there is not much choice in the market. If the returns are of the scale these companies predict then there will be no alternative but to submit.
*WE* are the wealth creators in this nasty little ménage à trois between us, the ISPs and Phorm like companies and yet our unfaithful partners expect to be able to take our valuable click stream from us with just a chuck under the chin in recompense.
This data mugging, in the heart of our ISPs, must be stopped in its tracks by clear unambiguous laws.
Here’s a link to a primer on how this is NOT like Google, it takes privacy invasion to a whole new level by scanning your total click stream, even if you opt out, Firefox and adblockers won’t prevent that.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/29/phorm_roundup/
Whores. all of them!!
if you want to trigger my responce to buy something, give me money!! i’ll buy as many things you want with all your money!!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The good news is, they’ll put the spyware scum-of-the-earth out of business.
The bad news is, you can block the spyware scum-of-the-earth from spying on you – but you can’t block your ISP scum-of-the-earth from spying on you.
‘The bad news is, you can block the spyware scum-of-the-earth from spying on you – but you can’t block your ISP scum-of-the-earth from spying on you.’
That’s why 121Media morphed into Phorm.
Well “it is just a little advertising” is just fine until the government steps in and says “Hey — as long as you are collecting that, can you screen for some of these words too?”. Now we know that won’t happen, except of course, it already has! No matter for what benign reason you collect data, sooner or later some zealous a**hole will unilaterally decide they need it for some other purpose, usually to circumvent your privacy. Note that the Patriot Act provisions to “watch terrorist money flows” by data mining bank data has turned up exactly zero terrorists, but lots of ordinary US citizens doing shady deals — notably Elliot Spitzer. FBI quote, “Yeah it is great [Patriot Act]. Before, we had no way to get at this information unless we already had enough for a warrant.” Just let that bang around in your brain for a minute and decide whether the ISPs should be allowed to do this….
#4
So, bobbo, you want your ISP to hold your hand and be your nanny? You are aware there are ways to pretty much eliminate spam, no? It requires you to be diligent and assume some personal responsibility.
Oh wait….
I understand now.
I don’t much like the idea of my ISP looking through every tiny bit of what I do… on the other hand I really despise having to constantly see ads for things I have utterly no need for whatsoever. It would be nice to only see ads for stuff I might be interested in since the ads aren’t going away.
@14: Firefox + Adblock = you do not get ads. So no need for ISP to look through anything.
If in this day and age anyone gets ads from the websites, it is their own limitation…
go for the easylist + easyelement subscription for adblock. nukes 99.9% of ads
#2 morram: Just like morons (like) you! Always shitting in some one elses yard and leaving it for others to clean up.
If TOR had sufficient bandwidth and you used it regularly, then your ISP would only see the TOR entry server IP and the responding server for the web page you accessed through TOR would see a TOR IP address. However, in my experience, TOR’s data speed reminds me of using dial-up.
Prob. not a practical solution now but, it might be an opportunity for TOR etc. to offer a service for pay.
nunyac
#5 – This seems terrifying to me. Am I the only one who has a problem with advertisers having access to the contents of my emails?
No… But it probably seems that way sometimes… right?
Big Brother is knocking, and America, not wanting to be rude, asks him in, offers him a seat, and fixes him a drink.
#6 – The ultimate goal of advertisers is to be able to crawl inside our brains and…
Shouldn’t the ultimate goal of the rest of us be to hunt down and kill everyone in advertising?
#19 OFTLO asked, “Shouldn’t the ultimate goal of the rest of us be to hunt down and kill everyone in advertising?”
Close. All we need to do is dress them up like lawyers and send them hunting with Dick Cheney 😉
#20 – Is it the color of their ties that make the difference?
#21 Just so there’s no mistake, let’s send them out dressed like this…
Ummm. Now I know why Comcast gives employees free Internet . .
I have the solution to this. It’s called “Jamming”. Which means confusing those who keep tabs on what your up to, by creating random information that has no reality in fact. This would mean software that earches and clicks to anything and everywhere. Of course you wouldn’t want this for a dialup connection, as it would really eat up one’s bandwidth in a hurry. And it’s also only going to noise up the broadband pipe as well. But so is this harvesting of precious data by the ISPs. When they’re busy processing all of this crap, they’re not doing what you’re paying them for. They’re compromising their limited resources, that they ought to be devoting to their customers, in order to make some cash on the side, selling what they know about you. If they don’t sell out that they’re doing this in the contract (in plain english) then it seems to me that the ISPs are in violation of service.
Would you tolerate your doctor spending his time selling your medical records to some outfit, rather than diagnosing your illness? Didn’t someone just catch hell (in the news) for peeking at Farrah Fawcett’s medical history to sell to some tabloid? Hey, they were just doing a little market research on the side. So what’s the bloomin diff?!
Well if our government doesn’t want to buckle down and stop this crap. Then it’s a jammin war the ISPs will get until they volutarily stop themselves. So please get busy independent programmers, with browsers add ons that create surfing noise up the ying yang.