Another Ted Schremp interview, this time with extra BS!
May 15, 2008 10:51 pm Doublespeak, Opt-out, Utter BSTed Schremp, senior vice president of product management and strategy, is back again today with a second interview, this time with CNET’s Declan McCullagh. This time he claims that Charter’s program does not utilize deep packet inspection, and that their new “enhanced service” is no different than giving their customers faster broadband speeds at no additional cost.
From the article:
Q: If you’re conducting deep packet inspection, that means you know what data your customers are transferring. Are you going to look for evidence of copyright infringement, child pornography, and so on as well?
The enhanced advertising solution does not utilize deep packet inspection. It looks at URL level information only. That’s another point of misinformation on the Net.
Q: You’re saying that URL-level information is not deep packet?
Suffice it to say that we’re using URL-level information only.
Huh, so I guess all of those articles out there on every other technical site and in every other interview, including the patent data from NebuAD itself describing their deep packet inspection model, is only “misinformation” and isn’t really using deep packet inspection after all. Is it just me or does this Ted Schremp guy sounds like he feasts on a big bowl of bullshit in the morning before he starts giving interviews just so his breath smells right for the occasion?
Q: If you’re getting a new stream of revenue from NebuAd, does that mean lower prices for your customers?
As we’ve gone into these pilots, we’ve conducted a series of focus groups to help us understand from their perspective, does this technology add value to their Internet experience, talk through privacy concerns, and so on. What our customers have shared with us is that they understand the fact that advertising is part of the Internet model. To the extent that fuels the economics behind the Internet, they understand that. They appreciate the notion that ads that are being served are attuned to their interests or potential interests.
We view it the same way as offering faster Internet speeds. This is no different. It’s about taking the latest technology and applying it as a way to be useful to our customers.
Schremp regularly talks about these focus groups, which must have been made up of hand-selected individuals chosen for their complete lack of understanding about the Internet, privacy, and technology. Based on the comments and articles I’ve seen, the only thing that Charter’s customers have confronted them with is negativity regarding this program. Of course Schremp has been programmed from birth to ignore negativity when presented with a better, less comprehensible company line, and proves once again in this interview that he is the perfect man to be selling this “enhancement” to Charter customers. It’s a wonder they aren’t actually raising prices over this.
And for the record, none of the Charter customers or technical service associates I’ve spoken with consider this on par with offering faster speeds. I don’t understand how spying on your customers, selling their private information to an advertising company, then lying through your teeth about how you’re going to collect, store, transmit, and secure their data is on par with bumping up your broadband rates. But then again I’m no Ted Schremp.
The key from our perspective is that we’re very customer-oriented in everything we do. The privacy concerns and the ability of our customers to opt-out and the fact that we’re talking today is indicative of that as well. We want to be very clear that they have a choice.
That’s great, Ted. Now exactly where can I exercise my choice not to be a part of your illegal wiretapping program?