ISPs May Be Selling Your Web Clicks

Mozzarella writes "Could our ISPs be selling our click data without us even knowing it? It seems like the practice is happening a lot more than we realize, and can be tracked for each user. Complete Incorporated's CTO David Cancel told Ars Technica that his company (an internet research firm) licenses click information from ISPs for 'millions of dollars' to figure out how we use the web. From the article: 'He did not give a specific figure about what this broke down to in terms of dollars per ISP user, although someone in the audience estimated that it was in the range of 40 per user per month — this estimate was erroneously attributed to Cancel himself in some reports on the event. Cancel said that this clickstream data is 'much more comprehensive' than data that is normally gleaned through analyzing search queries.'"

Comments

Your Internet soul was sold years ago

[BristolCream]

There is little new here. Companies such as http://www.hitwise.com/ have been purchasing raw traffic data for years. They place a box at switch level and monitor everything about everyone and the sell on the reports for profits. The last time I had a quote from them it was in the region of $28k to monitor footfall to a single site for a year. Access to the full data set can run into the hundreds of thousands.

Is this legal?

[Raul654]

If this is being done without users' consent, then it strikes me as being dangerously close to wiretapping, which is illegal.

Re:Who gives a rats ass?

[spun]

You all act so fuckin high and mighty - Privacy is a moot point to argue when you live in your parents basement.

You know I'm right

Son, your mother and I have said it before and we'll say it again: if you didn't have such a fixation on ostrich porn, we wouldn't have to monitor your net connection. When you're 18 and you have a place of your own then you can look at all the flightless bird porn you like, but not a moment sooner. Do you have any idea what it did to your little sister to come home and find you naked and covered in egg yolks with your head in a box of sand and feathers stuck up your ass?