Worcester Magazine covers Charter "web monitoring" story

Submitted by wccatv on May 29, 2008 - 11:01am.
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Worcester Magazine has a nice story about the Charter Communications "web tracking" controversy today. (It's unclear if the T&G ran an AP story about this a couple weeks ago.)

WCCA friend JS tells us that multiple people in Worcester have received letters warning them about the web tracking.

Madison Capital Times:

Schremp said in an e-mail interview Wednesday that Charter last week began sending explanatory e-mail letters to its broadband customers in the pilot markets of San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Fort Worth, Texas; Newtown, Conn.; and Oxford, Mass., but that the program does not start for 30 days.

Related story in Wired.

Update: Radioball asks, "Is any of this even legal?"

Side note: This illustration on the Capital Times article suggests Charter is going to be tracking a bunch of OLPC users. Huh?

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Thanks for turning the lights on this subject WCCA.

Submitted by Anonymous on May 29, 2008 - 6:39pm.

Charter wants to track/spy on their paying customers to exploit opportunities to profit.
Zoback deserves some credit for at least mentioning the story in spite of ad revs Charter gives to WoMag.
For me, this story really hit Worcester first through WCCA TV about a week earlier.
It is so amusing to me that in light of this story exposing Charter's greed, and knowing how they grease the "players" in this town, it doesn't look good for the city now that it has that watered down cable contract with them, especially as the city administration leaves the one media outlet that should remain free of political and commercial thumb prints, hanging on for stability, WCCA TV.

Charter's spying won't save you money.

Submitted by John on May 30, 2008 - 7:07am.

Right now, when a Charter customer chooses to "opt out" of this "enhancement" all it does is tell Charter not to swap ads. All your 'net activity is still watched: the sites you visit, the searches you make, all email sent/received. Every click you make.

I saw a story saying Charter stood to make $2.50/month doing this. I forget if the number was per computer or customer. None of the monies Charter gets will be used to lower the cost of customers 'net service.

Targeted Ads - How they effect you

Submitted by John on May 30, 2008 - 9:03am.

Let's say...
You go to the Ford web site and look at the Mustang pages. Over the next 10 days you go the the Worcester County Ford dealers web sites and look at the Mustangs for sale.
One day the Chevy dealer in Nashua, NH posts an ad saying "Today Only! All Corvettes Half Price". You won't see that ad. What you will see is an ad placed by the Ford dealer in Webster announcing free lollipops. That's because Charter replaced the Chevy dealer ad with the Ford dealer ad. Why? Quoting from the letter Charter sent
"the advertising you typically see online will better reflect the interests you express through your web-surfing activity. You will not see more ads - just ads that are more relevant to you."

I'm so easily confused

Submitted by John on May 30, 2008 - 12:22pm.

I called Charter tech support(?) 888-438-2427 to ask about the letter I got from Mr Stackhouse announcing Charter's new "enhanced online experience".

The first person I spoke to told me the letter was a scam and just ignore it. It was just the sender's way of collecting my credit card information. I explained the letter was not email; it was on paper delivered by the USPS. Again I was told just ignore it. I asked for his supervisor and got a dial tone.

I called back and got a different tech. I told her about the letter. Her response was that she had never heard about the letter and no one had ever called about it. I gave her the web address for opting out. After 5 minutes on hold she read to me the FAQs on the online advertising page »www.charter.com/onlineadvertising She told me that Charter was not collecting any information. After asking a few more questions I was told that Charter would not share any of the information that was collected.

Shouldn't the Charter folks who answer the phone know about the letter announcing the "enhanced online experience"?

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