- Saturday, 28 November 2009
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The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything - Edward John Phelps
AT&T pitches for user tracking and targetted ads
TELCO AT&T has told Congress that it wants to systematically track web users and serve them a steady diet of adverts.
According to the New York Times, AT&T is mounting a vigorous defence of ad targeting claiming that what it does is no different from Google.
It argues that Google had evolved beyond merely tracking consumer web surfing activity on sites and could snuffle out a users entire Web browsing history.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has asked ISPs about their Web tracking policies after Charter's proposed experiment with web spy firm Nebuad came to light.
AT&T was the only one who thought it a nifty idea to use data gathering systems like Nebuad to target ads at users. It did say that any tracking system it uses would be "opt-in" for users and optional. µ
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Do you trust AT&T that much? 

I don't. That's why I run Ad block Plus on Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
They'll just put it in their license agreement that no one reads and just clicks ok; opt-in complete!
I realised that I could actually be seeing adverts for stuff that interests me.

I'd rather see adverts for cool tech gadgets, cars and games than viagara, baldness cures and *dating* at £2/minute.

I just don't trust them to keep my records confidential, unless there is a "up to 20 years jail time" law written to protect our data.

Of course there could just be a "select the things you want to be advertised about" option on your ISP account page, and confirmation email when you sign up. But then that would be too simple.

And reduce my ISP bill by X per month if I agree to targetted advertising and you might have a deal!
SETI@home owes me big too.
Check out epic 2014 and epic 2015

http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=85631

other links

http://www.epic.org
http://www.g666le.com
http://www.google-watch.org/

http://www.urlfan.com/local/the_evil_side_of_google_exploring_googles_user_data_collection/87864708.html

If you have a gmail account and have not opted out of web history - every google search you do is tracked and permanently stored - like forever

http://www.google.com/history/intl/en/privacyfaq.html
I just use AdBlock.
I'm not interested in seeing any kind of ad anywhere on the Web - I see enough in my everyday life as it is.
I know where to go to get info on what I'm interested in - no need for ads anyway.
But don't tell the marketers - they'll start making me pay an entrance fee instead.