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Comments: 238 +- Your Rights Online: UK ISPs To Start Tracking Your Surfing To Serve You Ads on Monday February 18 2008, @06:33PM
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Monday February 18 2008, @06:33PM
from the weak-anonymizers-and-other-fun-party-tricks dept.
from the weak-anonymizers-and-other-fun-party-tricks dept.
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internet
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privacy
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."
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hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and some of them may be run by governments and criminal organizations.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I should think there are a few towns in the UK that maybe do have some real competition and inturn good fast 'net acces
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. It's part of the data returned by Google. The ISP has to snoop the data stream and insert its own traffic into it.
ISPs should be forbidden from altering the data stream unless they own the content that's being transferred.
Parent
Re:hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't take a copy of my website, insert a little bit, and then serve that. Couldn't google sue any ISP that alters their pages in any way?
Parent
Re:hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I don't think so. Transparently altering data is permissible according to RFC 2616 (the HTTP specification) unless you include the Cache-Control: no-transform header, which virtually nobody has ever heard of. Thus, if intermediate alteration is part of the protocol you are using and you haven't availed yourself of the opportunity to deny that action, it can be argued that the permission is implicitly granted, just the same way it's implicitly granted that they can cache it at all.
Parent
...until now (Score:4, Insightful)
p.s. looks like those UK bastards stole my nick too...
Parent
Not quite! (Score:3, Interesting)
A copyrighted work remains a copyrighted work, even if it is technically possible to violate that copyright (same as how a torrent of a new movie is not actually legal just because it is technically possible and in compliance with its own specification). Thus, an ISP still has no right to mangle those works for their own profit.
Of course the answer is easy: use encrypted protocols, and nothing but encrypted p
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
My ISP choices are limited, and I can't change them as fast as a search engine either. Plus once I click onto a site, google pretty much loose track where I am, especially if I block ads.
ISP can know every place I go.
Moreover, I don't pay google to use their service. I do pay an ISP. They have an revenue stream.
So I think your analogy is flawed.
Parent
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs should be forbidden from altering the data stream unless they own the content that's being transferred.
IMHO, ISPs should be forbidden from even snooping on your data stream. They've no more business monitoring your on-line activities than the Royal Mail has opening all your letters.
The data protection implications of this development are alarming, and frankly I don't care what some big accounting firm says about them. The day my ISP (which is not one of the three mentioned) says it will adopt a similar policy will be the day that I start the process of moving elsewhere, and I'd probably send a letter to the Information Commissioner expressing my concern as well.
But hey, if the ISPs are spying on where I go and what I do (actually, they're legally required to record it anyway these days — another draconian privacy invasion, this time mandated by our terrorist-fearing government) and acting on the data they have, presumably that absolves them of any immunity they might otherwise have had when they supply files to copyright infringers, kiddie porn to sickos, and the like. May the money-grabbing lawsuits and company-killing PR sink them quickly.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
ISPUK apparently (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ISPUK apparently (Score:5, Informative)
I think so! Under my understanding of the UK Data Protection Act (IANAL), this would have to be an opt-in scheme via a tick box on the contract. It used to be opt-out but this was changed.
Under the terms of the law an organization may not share personal data to another party without your consent. It's a pretty decent law, I don't know how the hell it got passed.
Parent
So who's paying the extra bsandwidth used? (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, if your ISP is serving you ads you don't want, they shouldn't be charging you the bandwidth used ...
Classy, very classy (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's interesting how three big ISPs banded together like this. It's almost like they're trying to shut out alternatives...
Re:Classy, very classy (Score:4, Informative)
I'd recommend them to anyone.
Parent
nice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:nice (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:nice (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Porn ads? (Score:5, Funny)
Porn ads from Virgin Media? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Porn ads? (Score:5, Funny)
She may just assume it's because of her own porn surfing?
Parent
Reason Number (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
[img src=http://isp.com/ads/somead.jpg]
into the stream at all. They could instead insert...
[img src=http://thesiteyouwereonalready.com/randomappearingnumber.jpg]
and then sniff your subsequent requests for that specific URI. Not easy to block with a plain old regular expression unfortunately.
Alli
Power corrupts (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Power corrupts (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(privitisation is not always automatically a good thing)
Re:Power corrupts (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
In other news.... (Score:4, Funny)
Mmm bad summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Phorm? (Score:2)
it's actually very very illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
No no no no. This is BAD captialism. Stop. Think. Or I will sue.
Their right? (Score:2)
I suppose an ISP has a right to do this sort of thing (unless, of course, they have contracted with you not to do it)
I'd imagine some ISP's will respond by offering Ad-Free internet service. Wouldn't this kinda fall under competition, then? Stupid for those ISP's, perhaps, but hey, stupidity can be nice for the consumer now and then.
I can has SSL? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Wait a minute... (Score:4, Insightful)
I could've sworn we had a story recently in which ISPs were resistant to monitoring users [slashdot.org]; 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...
ISP's who do this (Score:4, Insightful)
What gives them the right to choose?
Adblock now easy (Score:3, Insightful)
European privacy protection at its best (Score:4, Interesting)
Phorm (Score:3, Informative)
"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 [techdirt.com] 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 [121media.com].
Anybody got any more dirt on them?