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."

Re:hmm

[NMagic]

Yeah, most of your search pages already do logical banners. You search for something and they post up related products next to it. Hell, even most of your free webmail providers do it. As long as the ISP isn't dropping cookies on your box, I don't have too many problems with it... However, the one problem I see here comes when the ISPs start charging for bandwidth, and your browsing becomes as fast as using a 56k, due to the sheer amounts of tracking being done. Why should I have to pay for their ads?

I wish they'd stop calling it "serving ads"

[Butisol]

When I think of getting served, my mind's eye conjures images of roast beef dinners and roving gangs of street dancers. "Serving you ads" makes it sound like they're providing a valuable service when in fact they are wasting our time.

We need a more user-centric term that better describes the process of having ads jammed in our faces at every possible opportunity. "Buggering you ads" or something along those lines.

Furthermore, the users pay for the ISP's infrastructure, right? Should the ISP be allowed to hijack that infrastructure for such self-serving ends? Will ad revenue lower subscription fees or pay for higher speed/quality bandwidth?

Re:hmm

[pembo13]

Well the ISP is an internet provider. Google is as advertisement provider... I don't think they've ever been secretive about that fact.

Re:hmm

[corsec67]

Wouldn't copyright law already cover that?

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?

Re:hmm

[BSAtHome]

Use tor... Sure, it is slower, but it bypasses the ISP tracking.

Re:Power corrupts

[Statecraftsman]

We shouldn't need to purchase spectrum. We should purchase some lobbyists and maybe start some kind of calling campaign so the next useful chunk of spectrum will not be sold to the highest bidder. Instead it should be reserved like a national park for the public good...except instead of allowing us to enjoy the outdoors take hikes, collect our thoughts, this resource will grease the wheels of business, society and innovation.

Re:hmm

[STrinity]

Use tor... Sure, it is slower, but it bypasses the ISP tracking.

However the last node in the chain can see anything you do that isn't using HTTPS/SSL, and if anything you do gives away your identity, they can figure out who you are.

Oh, and some of them may be run by governments and criminal organizations.

Uhhh. Have I got this right?

[EddyPearson]

"...trying to work with ISPs to make use of that data themselves to insert their own ads based on your surfing history."

Am I to take it that this means Virgin Media will be injecting Ads into Slashdot (for instance)? Apart from the obvious privacy issues, unless their algorithm is extremely clever, surly this is going to break a lot of pages?

I WILL switch ISPs if this happens, I don't like the privacy implications, and I don't like interference.

I don't like the fact that ISP keep pushing the line further and further. First, its bandwidth monitoring, then its bandwidth throttling, then injected ads, then its censorship, and eventually we have a government approved white list. Then we'll wonder how it happened.

Re:hmm

[Dan541]

Is there no Privacy act in the UK?

Im surprised this is even legal.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:hmm

[William-Ely]

I don't pay Google to provide me with a service. If an ISP wants to inject ads into your browser they should at least give you a discount.

European privacy protection at its best

[nguy]

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.

Re:hmm

[palegray.net]

I predict a large number of technically savvy people (a) creating new tunneling networks to allow for encrypted surfing to an Internet endpoint not controlled by traffic-sniffing ISPs, and (b) a large number of technically savvy people making use of the provisions described in (a). It could be as simple as buying a router with the functionality built in. Speaking of which, why hasn't anyone marketed such a device to consumers? While it might be expensive compared to "plain vanilla" home routers, it would certainly have a devoted following of geeks.

Not quite!

[johannesg]

Even if something is possible according to a protocol description, that still doesn't make it legal.

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 protocols. It is utterly unclear to me why anyway would even need unencrypted protocols for *anything* you do online.