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Charter's Trials of NebuAd Halted
RalphTheWonderLlama writes "The trials of NebuAd by Charter Communications were halted after it gained the attention of Congressmen Ed Markey and Joe Barton. The online behavioral targeting system has been called "a 'man-in-the-middle attack' and various other unflattering names" but would certainly be an easy way for an ISP to cash in on client profiling."
PaisteUser points out MSNBC's coverage as well, according to which the ad-insertion scheme was dropped because of "concerns raised by customers."
...one less complaint I have with Charter (maybe). Almost every Charter customer I've ever talked to has horror stories.
I have no other choice for broadband where I am, so I've just been putting up with it for ~5 years. So I don't want to hear any of this "vote with your wallet" crap.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
No, actually, it isn't.
It's called reality. And making an analogy akin to flying cars is well.... Not reality.
Welcome to the real world. Where actually having a choice is NOT akin to NOT having a choice.
Call it flamebait, call it trolling, call it whatever you want. It's still a fact, if you have more than one or two completely different (companies, technologies, etc), nobody has a monopoly. Granted, it isn't coming over the same cable line or phone line (but, remember, you can get other DSL companies to give you your ISP, but it is still the "phone company" giving you the last mile), but wireless / satellite / cellular technology means you don't HAVE to be tied to the last mile now.
I've used satellite and I've used wireless. WiFi was / is just as good as wired internet for anything except gaming. As is Satellite. The latency is overcome the second information starts to come down.
My wifi location was almost 3 miles from the central node in SoCal. In Oregon, it was 4.5 miles. So, I am speaking real world.
Satellite, I wouldn't want again, just because of the modem / isdn backhaul. BUT, it does work, and if you have no other ISP capable of servicing you, it's higher speed than two cans and a string.
Funny, though, how I'm modded flamebait for stating a fact. There is little to no monopoly on internet in the US of A. Just because you don't like the only company servicing your community in your town in the technology you want doesn't mean there isn't another ballgame or technology around. It might not be as good, but........
Truth hurts, and it hurts those who stretch it to fit their own agenda best.... But you can't stretch the truth to be another truth, and a monopoly we don't have, not on the internet. (car analogy: You can choose a bus or a compact, but you will still get to the same store. Or another. I guess we have a monopoly on gas in the USA, eh? Since we only have a handful of gas companies.) Any other idiotic claims of monopoly are referenced to the Rockefeller's and gasoline (specifically Standard Oil).
--Toll_Free