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Bell Canada To Collect User Data For Advertising
beerdragoon writes "One of Canada's biggest mobile and TV providers will soon begin collecting detailed information on usage patterns of its subscribers. Starting November 16th, Bell plans on using this information to provide targeted ads for subscribers. According to Bell this policy will allow customers 'to receive Internet advertising that's relevant to them rather than the random online advertising they're receiving now.' Customers have until the 16th to opt out of the targeted ads, but there doesn't appear to be a way to opt out of the data collection. Apparently this is not illegal, but it is certainly considered unethical by many."
Canadian telecom carriers have used the negative option for decades, been scolded by consumer groups and regulators almost every time, yet keep coming back with the old "we're going to go ahead and do this to you unless you say no, and by the way you can pick up the NO form by... um... we're not sure where it is..."
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Glad I'm not a Bell subscriber, but damn... Now that the line has been crossed I expect every alternate service provider will start doing the same thing.
Fuck.
I am drafting my complaint to the Privacy commissioner, and you should too. The commissioner has real teeth and Bell will definately have to defend what they're doing. As a regulated utility they do not have right to unilaterally foist this upon people. It's repugnant and evil.
http://www.priv.gc.ca/index_e.asp
The terms are really horrible. Also, the fine print says they're going to collect and use it anyway - you can opt out of the ads. I don't have Bell TV or Phone - just internet - so how, exactly, do they intend to serve me ads?
Get angry about this. The commisioner can't do anything without complaints. Give them some.
..don't panic
What competitors? I switched from bell to teksavvy and 9 out of 10 people I know had no idea it even existed. Even after switching I'm still at the mercy of cogeco because they own the lines around here. When there is a service interruption cogeco, rogers and bell make sure that teksavvy customers are the last to get their service back.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
Or switch to an ISP that does not insist on treating their customers like shit.
It's BELL MOBILITY, not BELL INTERNET.
Charter tried this in the US. It didn't last long. When someone's kids were targeted for ads based on dad's browsing things get ugly.
Ok, I give up, why you?
I'm more concerned with whatever magic they are doing to get the list of websites I'm visiting. Be it transparent proxy of packet inspection, it seems totally over the line.
for now. Smartphone users are being used as beta-testers.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
The problem as I see is is that the lines are owned by Bell (or Rogers in the case of cable). There are many independent ISPs, but they all run through the infrastructure of Bell or Rogers. If your internet connection doesn't work, apart from basic trouble shooting (reset modem, check settings), the independent ISPs have to ask Rogers/Bell to fix the problem for them. You can guess how fast Bell/Rogers will do this. I've been toying with the idea of going with TekSavvy (a popular indie ISP), but all the people I know who have switched (not many, but still quite a few people), have had multi-day outages because they were unable to have the problem fixed directly by their ISP. Until this type of problem is fixed, they're Indie ISPs can't offer a reasonable level of service.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
TekSavvy leases more than just the last mile, they also lease the aggregation network. For users in eastern Canada, TekSavvy's entire network is constrained to a single building in downtown Toronto. As a Montreal TekSavvy user, my path to a server on the Internet goes through nothing but Bell hardware all the way until it hits 151 Front St. in Toronto, at which point it gets dumped into somebody else's network again (one of TSI's upstream providers).
Independent ISPs are not resellers, but to say that they're only getting the "last mile" from Bell is incredibly inaccurate.
Bull,
I have been with smaller ISP's in ontario for 20+ years now, I agree that all the data goes through their pipes, but multi day service outages haven't ever happened to me or anyone I know. Actually Bell / Rogers has 24 hours to fix it once it's gone up from the ISP and they usually do quicker than that.
I am with ViaNet out of Sudbury, I live in Oshawa (a long distance away) and the only service interruptions I have ever had at 3 business locations and my house have been because I am a moron and forgot to pay my bill for 5 months.
Glad you're getting better service then the people I know. I live in Ottawa, so my experiences and those of people I know may be different than yours. If I knew people with experiences like yours in my area, I'd be more likely to switch.
For TekSavvy, with Cable, they have to send an email to Rogers when something needs fixing. Then there's a full day for them to respond to that email. Sometimes it gets fixed with that first email, but sometimes it doesn't. The only communication channel between the two is email. I know a guy who was without internet for 2 weeks, because there was a problem with the lines. They kept insisting the lines were fine, but they weren't as was proven by the fact that the problem promptly disappeared after they finally replaced the lines.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
We have the conservative party. They are a right wing political party roughly equivalent to the Democrats.
This is why I switched to Teksavvy. I got fed up with the bullshit Rogers and Bell were pulling, a long time ago. I haven't regretted the decision.
Not only does Teksavvy not try to foist bullshit on their customers, but they actively fight for consumer rights.
Actually Bell / Rogers has 24 hours to fix it once it's gone up from the ISP and they usually do quicker than that.
Actually according to the TPIA agreements that most of the other ISP's have it's 48 hours, in fact it got so bad not all that long ago that the delays for repairs from Tek to Rogers were in the 7 day range. CNOC has recently filed with the CRTC to fix the TPIA issues and issues to repair, as well as long ticket repair delays. And this is happening across the spectrum, not just with Tek, or Velcom, or Start, but everyone DSL and cable, and getting screwed over.
If you're Canadian, you should write a letter to the CRTC. Information on it can be found here.
Myself, I've been with Tek back in Ontario for 3 years. I had one two day outage thanks to rogers breaking the routing tables, while doing a node update. Tek gave me the two days back discounted, I'm out in Alberta until December doing a deployment for a small town and the only thing I can get here is LTE for internet, because Telus refuses to upgrade the number of ports available. As a fun point, that's been on-going for 4 years, if you move in this city--you can't move your DSL with you either.
Om, nomnomnom...
According to CBC, the privacy commissioner is Already Starting an Investigation
Not to burst your bubble, but Bell is a publicly owned company. It trades on the TSX/NYSE under ticket "BCE" and is 45% institutional owned. This means the majority of the holders are not large institutions.
As for Teachers pension plan their holdings are now below $100MM (well, they dont show up on their reports for positions > 100MM http://www.otpp.com/investments/essentials/major-investments)
Perhaps you are thinking of the failed attempt to take them public years ago?
PS: I'm an "owner" of BCE as I've held a position for many years.
Nice conspiracy theory, next time spend a minute or two to validate.