Charter wants to track users and replace online adverts
US CABLE ISP Charter Communications has sent all its subscribers a letter telling them that it's going to start monitoring their web-surfing habits and online searches and replacing the ads on webpages they visit based on their interests.
Of course, Charter claims that its subscribers' personal information won't be compromised, their wibbling habits and interests will remain confidential, and information won't be provided to third parties or sold.
Charter is also generously offering to let its subscribers opt out of this new "enhanced online experience" by visiting an unencrypted, insecure web page and entering their full name and address, then accepting an opt-out cookie stored in their web-browser.
Sunscribers will have to do this from every computer they use, and they will have to do it all over again if they ever purge their web-browser's cache of cookies.
Charter also doesn't mention what performance impact its new "service" will have on its network performance and its subscribers' web page access delays.
There's speculation over at DSL Reports that the driver for Charter's cunning plan involves hardware-based deep packet inspection.
One Charter subscriber had his jolly rant published at The Consumerist. Others were on the search for a good encrypted web-proxy server.
We can only guess how advertising-supported web site publishers might feel about this. Cough! µ
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Wow, with no incentive to even serve Charter subscribers, even through ads, I know that I'd put a giant BANNED notice from any IP originating from Charter, some nice information about their sleazy practices, and some nice advertisements for alternative ISPs.
Apart from the apparent question whether they are allowed to distribute a derivative of a copyrighted work (yes, my page *is* copyrighted). I'd like to invite anyone to see a modified page to inform the copyright holder.

There is another more pressing question. The tracking of users based on content is extremely dangerous and can be used by any "bad guy" (e.g. government) to monitor you illegally. Do you really want anybody to know that you are looking for pr0n^H^H^H^Hcarbomb material?

Imaging that you now get ads served of "Get The Facts" whenever you visit http://www.gnu.org/. I'd guess that would be quite a skewing factor. Or does the INQ want its articles to be accompanied by "rebuttal" advertisements?

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Greetings Bertho
Since everything the US does eventually turns up in Europe, I wonder how long this kind of behavior is going to take to get to our shores.

Of course, I do not count the UK as being part of Europe - the borgifying process is already on its way on the Isle of Big Ben.
I'm working on a browser which will strip out all advertising from all web pages and just put the content you want.

Free as in free of Ads
And my new browser will generate 50 random searches from a list of 10,000 which is changed daily and only display the results of the real search
As a WOW Internet subscriber I just recently received a similar email regarding replacing online ads. See below:

Dear WOW! Customer,

>From time to time we update our Privacy Policies. You can always find our most recent Terms & Conditions on our website at wowway.com. This notice is to specifically call your attention to an update we have made regarding Third Party Advertisers.

Please rest assured that WOW! does not and will not share Personally Identifiable Information with any advertiser. The term “Personally Identifiable Information” or “PII”, means any information collected online about a user, such as a first and last name, a physical street address, an email address, a telephone number, or a social security number, that permits the identification of particular persons.

WOW! has entered into an agreement with a third party advertiser, NebuAd, who through their advertising network will provide tailored advertising services using non-personally identifiable information. These advertisements will be based on users’ anonymous surfing behavior while they are online. This anonymous information will NOT include those users' name, email address, telephone number, or any other personally identifiable information. The information observed is non-personally identifiable and anonymous and cannot, by itself or in combination, identify a specific person.

You will NOT get any more advertising online than you already get. The benefit that this third party advertising network provides to you is that it can display advertisements to you that are more likely to be related to your interests. The ad network does not tailor ads to children under the age of 13, nor does it track or display advertisements related to any adult content. You will not see any more ads than you would otherwise see, nor will these ads be any more intrusive or different from standard ads across the Internet.

If you would like to opt out, go to http://www.nebuad.com/privacy/optout.php. By opting out you will continue to receive advertisements as normal, except these advertisements will be less relevant and less useful to you.

If you would like more information about our third-party ad serving company and its privacy policies, please visit http://www.nebuad.com/privacy/servicesPrivacy.php.

We care about protecting your privacy. Please visit wowway.com for detailed information about our policies or to seek answers to frequently asked questions.

Sincerely,

Cathy Kuo
Chief Marketing Officer
WOW! Internet - Cable - Phone


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