Wired breaks down Charter’s pretend “opt-out”
May 17, 2008 12:21 pm Legal, Opt-out, TechnicalWired has done a great job of covering Charter’s new anti-customer-privacy advertising initiative, but their offering today simply takes the cake. Chock full of technical information, Wired takes a deep look at the technology employed by NebuAD in their collusion with Charter to spy on everything we broadband subscribers do online.
From the article:
NebuAd’s appliance categorizes users and their interests, and then uses the data to customize ads on the internet. Charter says the device will not actively inject NebuAd’s advertising into web sessions, but rather NebuAd will provide the profile information to third-party advertisers already paying to place their ads on major websites.
So now we’re learning that Charter sells our information to NebuAD, who then makes it available to even more companies? At exactly what point is the customer’s privacy taken into consideration in this chain of events? Is it before or after the data gets sold to NebuAD, who has no legal obligation not to resell your habits to every data-mining house on the planet?
Charter’s own opt-out page is careful not to claim that opted-out users won’t be monitored, saying only that if a user “would like to opt-out of this process” an opt-out cookie means they “will no longer receive ads that are tailored to your web preferences, usage patterns and commercial interests.”
Indeed, it is possible that the cookie system works to prevent opted-out users from receiving the third-party ads, and it could stop NebuAd from sharing a user’s profile with third-party ad networks — assuming those networks include a NebuAd image file, or some other embedded code, in the ads they serve on the web. But NebuAd’s claim that you can opt-out of the surveillance itself remains unexplained.
But don’t worry. I’m sure Ted Schremp has six or seven different explanations he can offer on the matter, each one more puppy dog and rainbow than the last.
In all seriousness, Charter Communications commits a federal crime every time it collects data on a customer which isn’t used to enhance their service. They commit a second federal crime every time they sell our information without our express consent allowing them to do so. Once the information is in NebuAD’s hands, though, they can do whatever they want with it. They’re not explaining their opt-out system because, to be blunt, they’re not under any obligation to reveal anything at all about it. Charter is the one on the hook for committing the crimes, so why not just let them lie about it?
There are also lingering questions about whether NebuAd’s systems are as non-invasive as described. A patent application filed by the company in March 2007 describes a monitoring system that actually manipulates data packets and replaces advertisements on third-party websites with their own ads.
Finally, Charter gets company as NebuAD commits federal copyright violations!
The legality of eavesdropping on Americans’ internet usage also isn’t clear. The practice could violate anti-wiretapping law, according to recent analyses of the legality of academic internet research, because the law says an ISP is only allowed to monitors its customers for security reasons.
Could violate the law? If the law says that an ISP can only monitor customers for security reasons, but Charter monitors its customers in order to sell their surfing habits for increased profits, then how exactly is that a matter of “could.” If I’m not mistaken, that’s a pretty direct violation.
But why wait for the lawyers to settle that? Charter wants to monitor you now.