Slashdot Mirror
Plans For Massive Web Tracking Via ISPs
Lauren Weinstein, the moderator of the PRIVACY Forum, writes: "My latest issue of the PRIVACY Forum Digest, going out now,
reveals Predictive Networks' plans for widespread Web Tracking
via direct links to ISPs! Details are here. Thanks much." Pay ISPs for the ability to snoop on their customers, what a great idea. Dave Farber has a comment on Predictive Networks as well.
Doing a quick Google search, I ran across this article praising the development of "interactive relationship managers" (IRMs) like the one developed by Predictive Networks. The author is all agog about the marketing benefits of using these IRMs to target exactly what the customers want. He says that 'the "best customers"...[will] make sure that the only advertising that gets through is advertising that they really want to hear.' But then he claims that the way to do this is to use IRMs that 'collect user data based on the surfing habits of ISP customers and then make appropriate suggestions as to what else those customers might like or need.
He also mentions the opportunity for companies to act as free ISPs to their customers so that they can easily gather the profiling information.
<RANT>
This "solution" is patently ridiculous (maybe it should be patented!). Am I a "best customer" in his terms, or not? I absolutely do not want my time and bandwidth wasted by any advertisement unless I decide that I want to see it. According to his definition, that makes me a "best customer".
But there's no way that I want any commercial entity, either software or meatware, to profile my actions and try to figure out what I might be interested in. I'm sorry, but this "best customer" wants to choose for himself what he's interested in seeing. I know best what I'm interested in. Any other "solution" is a travesty, and especially one that violates my privacy in order to provide a useless "service" that I do not want at all.
Not only is the IRM a violation of my privacy, but it's also ineffective -- my current interests are not determined by my previous interests. If I am interested in purchasing something, I will find the information I need for myself. And it will be good information -- not just biased marketing drivel.
How can someone be so clueless to think that IRMs are a solution for people who want to control what advertising they see? They are the same marketing solution all over again - "we will tell you what you should be interested in."
Sorry, but I'm not listening. I already know what I'm interested in.
</RANT>
That's not the point. _No one_ should have to jump through hoops to maintain their right to privacy on the Internet. One shouldn't have to be a "geek" and know how to beat the system, because the system shouldn't be that way in the first place.
> the sheer volume of information they'll need to process will be overwhelming
So maybe it'll be difficult in the beginning, but remember Moore's Law can be applied to more things than your Quake III fps score or your Linux compile time. While processing power, bandwidth and storage capacity continue to increase, the last time I checked, the length of URLs was pretty much constant. If they can't handle all the data now, with the right funding, they will be able to soon. It's only a matter of time....
I've been kicking around the idea of setting up an invitation-only IPv6 tunneling network with encrypted tunnels. This story encourages me to develop the idea.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
In the UK, the government will get there first.
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act will treat ISPs as telcos. It will require them to put the monitoring apparatus in place, so the government can watch what its taxpayers are doing. More detailed discussion of this hideous legislation can be found at the STAND site.
Once the telcos, sorry, ISPs put this apparatus in place, thy might as well get some return on their 'investment' by gleaning marketing info about their customers in passing.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
I keep seeing these draconian laws being passed by our government, and these orwellian systems being created and implemented by profit- and power-hungry corporations. It seems every day there's a different post to Slashdot describing some new method for controlling the flow of information and the freedoms that we should be taking for granted...
And what are we doing about it? Why do we keep allowing our rights and freedoms to be taken away?
Why are those in power doing this to us? That's easy to answer: Because they can. Because anybody in power will seek to extend their power and control.
Why are we allowing this to happen? I don't know. Some of us are fighting back as much as we can, but most of us simply post to Slashdot and complain.
Listen up! All this bullshit that we've been fed ("We live in a free country!", "The economy is doing great!"), it's all just that: bullshit! We're losing our rights and freedoms on a daily basis, our economy is fake (the drop on last Friday was equivalent to Black Tuesday in 1929), people all over the world are being forced into sweatshop slavery in the name of "economic progress", and our environment is being raped and destroyed at an alarming rate in the name of profit.
And most importantly? The technology that we all love and support is being turned back on us in order to control and monitor people. They're usurping something that they have no right to usurp. We have to put the power of technology back into the hands of the people!
It's time to fight back! It's time for a revolution!
http://www.indymedia.org - Support independant media!
http://www.soaw.org - Why are our tax dollars being spent on training murderers?
http://www.corpwatch.org - So you think only governments can oppress and censor?
http://www.spunk.org
http://www.infoshop.org - Communism is dead, Capitalism is close to it. There is another alternative, and it's time we started exploring it.
http://www.adbusters.org
http://www.rtmark.com
http://www.subvertise.org - Subvertising (also known as adbusting) at it's best.
http://www.ainfos.ca - Keep informed on what is happening in the world, from an anti-authoritarian, grassroots perspective.
http://www.a16.org - Seattle and D.C. are just the beginning.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
They run a network that's like a proxy on steroids. They even try to protect you against traffic analysis. Everything is encrypted. Everything goes through three servers, chosen by the user from a long list. The server operators are all independent of each other.
Each server knows only the hop before it and the hop after it. The first server has your IP address, but not the address of the site you're visiting, let alone the URL. It only knows how to send the data to the second server. The second server knows only the other two, and doesn't know who you are or what site you're hitting. The third server knows the URL, and how to send the data back via the second server, but not who's hitting it. You can theoretically use longer chains. You can pick servers in different countries. Etc, etc.
A future version of the system is supposed to send "cover traffic" to screw up traffic analysis.
The software runs on Windows; Linux version due RSN, so they say.
50 bucks buys you 5 pseudonyms for a year. Hizonner says check it out (when the Web site comes back up).
Disclaimer: I want to work for these guys.
I work for a big .com, and in the course of my product management duties I have picked up some knowledge about how ad rates on the net are set up.
(Vocabulary you need to know: CPM. CPM stands for "cost per thousand," and it is how ads are sold. Show an ad to 1000 people, and you earn the ad's CPM, less a fee for ad serving, which is somewhere around $0.30-$0.50, from AdSmart anyway.)
Anyway, here's why all this tracking hoo-hah is inevitable...
Un-targeted banner ads -- the "bottom feeders," I have heard them called -- command a measly $1-3 CPM. Many sites that do not have their users categorized display these "run of site" untargeted banners. They make a few bucks per CPM. Nice, but it's not the big money.
Targeted ads are much more lucrative. If your users are divided into highly "vertical" segments, like car people, pet people, etc. you can make $10-$15 CPMs.
Right there is the motivation for all of this. Targeted ads make the big bucks.
But, look on the bright side... in the coming no-privacy ISP world, there's an opportunity for a number of right-thinking geek-run ISPs to really grow and serve our needs...
... until the government fixes that by banning on-line anonynimity. Which is their ultimate goal -- don't doubt that for a minute. The President stated that very clearly recently. I wish I had the link handy. Right now we should also be thinking of ways to defeat enforced-by-law identity tracking, as it is inevitable.