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UK ISPs To Start Tracking Your Surfing To Serve You Ads
TechDirt has an interesting article about a UK-based company that is trying to work with ISPs to make use of user surfing data to serve targeted ads. "Late last year, we heard about a company that was trying to work with ISPs to make use of that data themselves to insert their own ads based on your surfing history -- and now we've got the first report of some big ISPs moving into this realm. Over in the UK three big ISPs, BT, Carphone Warehouse and Virgin Media have announced plans to use your clickstream data to insert relevant ads as you surf through a new startup called Phorm."
So it's bad when ISPs do this, but OK when Google does it?
does this not break privacy laws? for that matter, why can an ISP snoop on what you're doign when the government can not?
After all, if your ISP is serving you ads you don't want, they shouldn't be charging you the bandwidth used ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
All you have to do is also lower prices, and you'll see how many 'citizens' are willing to sell their privacy.
And it's interesting how three big ISPs banded together like this. It's almost like they're trying to shut out alternatives...
so now my family can enjoy the advertisements based on the porn I was watching earlier that week?
So if my wife starts getting a lot of ads for porn, do you think she'll put two and two together?
Please oh please, can we start working on an open source(wimax) router with two bands(backbone and local) so we can build our own huge mesh network and say buh-bye to ISPs forever? We don't need your email address, we don't need your antivirus software, we do not need your bills, and finally we don't need you messing with our connections. That is all.
...advertisements for KY Jelly skyrocket...
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
When people say "Insert relevant ads" it usually means ISP hacked the page you got from remote server and inserted and ad that wasn't there, or replaced one on the page with something else. Bad thing. Here, they organize new ad platform. Any site that uses it will be showing something Phorm servs up, and it, in turn, will try to figure out what to show by using ALL of your surfing history, no matter what sites you visit. So, if you go to golf sites A, B, C (that serve ads via yahoo, for example), and then to Phorm-using site M that has articles on electronics, site M will show you golf ads, due to your click-stream.
... in reality it's 2-3-4 individual users. And showing wife an ad for a new heavy album won't make CTR go through the roof. And teenager might actually barf at the sight of the cooking ads.
Of course advertisers will be disappointed to find out, that many people actually use one connection for a household. So, while from the point of view of ISP user clicked Cooking A, Cooking B, Valentine's day, Heavy metal band, Banking, Myspace
p.s. ISPs sell the data anyways, not usre how this opt-out would work...
Hyperom.com
Wow. It's almost like they want to see SSL used absolutely everywhere. Have they considered the fact that, once website operators feel the need to switch to HTTPS to keep other people's ads off of their pages, they won't even be able to sell clickstream data anymore? (Not that I mind, of course. I really hate to see ISPs doing things like this; but if it drives greater adoption of crypto, it isn't all bad.)
In broader terms, though, this sort of thing is a (minor) example of what is really a huge problem. The internet is the biggest, newest, most disruptive medium in quite some time. But it flows over pipes largely controlled by people who would be much happier if it had never existed. That is a dangerous state of affairs. We need to exterminate the cable and telco guys, with their dreams of the old days when the endpoints were dumb and the network was all powerful, and get some new people who understand that internet access is a basic, cheap, boring commodity like cement or potatoes. It is occurrences like those above that make me seriously consider the idea of having municipal data pipes, just as we have municipal water pipes.
So how come it's not okay for the phone company to barge into a voice communication in the middle of a conversation I am having with someone in order to tell me of the sale at my local shopping mall and the low low prices on mattresses, but when it's DATA they feel they have the right to alter the communication between myself and the party I am communicating with?
Plus are the websites going to be compensated for their loss? Because presumably if the visitor is reading a 3rd party ad instead of the ads on the website, the value of the ad space on said website is diminished.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I could've sworn we had a story recently in which ISPs were resistant to monitoring users; what happened..?
Oh! That's right; they were resisting legislative impetus to monitor traffic, but now they have a financial impetus. Tch; if only the government had thought through the remuneration aspect...
May open the door to being sued. When they choose what can come through then they will be under obligation to stop thing like child pron, XXX to minors, BiTorrent downloads...
What gives them the right to choose?
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Methinks that if this becomes commonplace, then perhaps that little header bit might become a whole lot more popular.
p.s. looks like those UK bastards stole my nick too...
Not only does your ISP record your surfing data and keeps it around to give to the police, he sells it to other companies, too.
"With OIX and Webwise, consumers are in control: they can switch relevance 'off' or 'on' at any time at Webwise.com. There's no small print and no catches: it's completely up to the consumer."
In the comments on the Techdirt article somebody is saying that Phorm are the latest incarnation of 121media which made the contextplus rootkit. A quick search later and indeed they are the same company.
Anybody got any more dirt on them?