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Internet Provider Halts Plan to Track, Sell Users' Surfing Data
Charter Communications had planned to test the monitoring technique in Fort Worth; Oxford, Mass.; Newtown, Conn.; and San Luis Obispo, Calif.
(By Tom Gannam -- Associated Press)
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Although common tracking systems, known as cookies, have counted a consumer's visits to a network of sites, the new monitoring enables a far broader view -- every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search query entered. Every bit of data is divided into packets, like electronic envelopes, that the system can analyze.
The extent of the practice is difficult to gauge because some service providers involved have declined to discuss their methods. Many affected Web users, moreover, probably have little idea that they are being monitored.
But at least 100,000 U.S. customers are tracked this way, and service providers covering 10 percent of subscribers in the United States have considered or tested the practice, according to tech companies involved in the data collection.
A report last week by two public interest groups, Free Press and Public Knowledge, identified five companies that use NebuAd's service: WOW, Embarq, Broadstripe, CenturyTel and Metro Provider.
"We call on other customers of NebuAd to follow Charter's lead and to stop doing business with a company that violates customers' privacy as well as established technical standards on the Internet," said Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge.
Charter also faced concerns from Markey and Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Markey and Barton met with Charter officials last week. The lawmakers had written a letter suggesting that such a technique could violate federal law.
"Charter isn't a fool -- they got the message," said Jeff Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy. Its proposal "crossed a digital line in the sand that up till now hadn't been challenged. Congress had accepted targeted Internet marketing, but the fact that ISPs were going to do it clearly had the potential of creating a firestorm."
