Congressmen Not Happy About Charter's Plan To Sell Out Users To Advertisers

from the might-want-to-think-twice dept

Fri, May 16th 2008 4:02pm — Mike Masnick

While Charter Communications is out defending its efforts to inject ads into your surfing activities by collecting data on where you surf, it appears that some powerful Congressional Representatives are suggesting that Charter might want to think twice about implementing this. Reps. Ed Markey and Joe Barton (who both have a fair amount of power in Congress) have sent Charter a letter warning the company that doing this without letting people affirmatively opt-in may violate the Communications Act, which limits what cable companies can do with customer records. What's really surprising is that, after so much anger over similar efforts in the UK (including similar questions about legality) that Charter forged right ahead with a nearly identical plan in the US, positioning it as an "enhancement." Update And on top of this, reports are now coming out that opt-ing out of this system isn't so easy after all.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: advertising, clickstream tracking, congress, ed markey, joe barton, opt-in, opt-out
Companies: charter communications

12 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

e6k (profile), 16 May 2008 @ 4:52pm

Mike check it out, the guys that make this gamer show (5 people) are using the show for the commercial to sell t-shirts. Watch the vid at the top of the page.

http://www.purepwnage.com/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Not Bob, 16 May 2008 @ 5:07pm

A simple solution
As if there were such a thing...

Taking a cue from the end of the linked story at the bottom of the piece, Congress could make it illegal to track, trace, or tamper with data transmitted over the internet. End of nonsense. As if...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2008 @ 5:49pm

Wow, so not everyone on the hill is bought and paid for.
Cheers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
some old guy, 16 May 2008 @ 5:51pm

Re:
um, you mean this guy is bought and paid for by the telco, as opposed to the cabletelco.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2008 @ 5:54pm

This is cool
is it for real ?

http://www.antiphorm.com/page_software.htm
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 16 May 2008 @ 5:59pm

Re: Re:
I hadn't considered that.
You are suggesting they would be fine with it, if it were a telco.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike (profile), 16 May 2008 @ 6:20pm

Re: Re:
um, you mean this guy is bought and paid for by the telco, as opposed to the cabletelco.

Well, both Markey and Barton have their fair share of ridiculousness (check out Barton's hearings on video game violence, for example), but in Markey's case, he's definitely not paid for by the telcos. He's the guy pushing for net neutrality regulations that the telcos hate.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jake, 16 May 2008 @ 7:04pm

Re: A simple solution
I'd add a qualifier permitting federal agencies to do so when in possession of a search warrant, but yeah, that about covers it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
claire rand, 17 May 2008 @ 7:50am

uk...
given this is already illegal in the UK, and appears to be going ahead anyway.. the police refuse to touch it and the governbent has said its a matter for the police.

oh and they have set the law governing such things so that *only* the governbent can start a legal case...

don't hold your breath, once it becomes common knowlegde among the monkeys in power that they can see *everything* you see on line they will start salivating at the posibilities to 'protect the children' etc.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
PixelPusher, 19 May 2008 @ 9:12am

One more bad idea
So parents are *legally* surfing for pr0n online at night away from prying kids eyes.

The next day the kids are surfing for WebKins, and oops up pop pr0n ads full of naughty bits.

I can't WAIT for that lawsuit against Charter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chris in Missouri, 19 Jun 2008 @ 11:10am

Not Just Charter
My ISP is Centurytel. Five days ago, my antivirus prog started warning me about a sudden flood of tracking cookies on my system. Prior to June 14, it was unusual for AVG to find more than a half-dozen such cookies during the daily scan. Suddenly it was finding seventy to ninety per scan. I'd erase them each time; the next day they'd be back. I couldn't figure out what was going on--my browsing habits hadn't changed--until last night when someone sent me a copy of the report on NebuAd and the cookies it generates. Sure enough, those were the cookies that were being placed on my machine.

I deleted them and replaced them with empty read-only files with the same names today. We'll see how that works.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous, 21 Jun 2008 @ 3:39pm

Bresnan-NebuAd
Bresnan Communications is also utilizing NebuAd as evident by their own website. www.BRESNAN.COM/CUSTOMIZE

Also check out this discussion on dslreports; http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,20258823?hilite=
[ link to this | view in thread ]