Charter's web monitoring

Charter Communications is one of the organizations that Congress wants to answer questions about tracking your internet use.

A congressional committee wants the nation's largest telecommunications and Internet companies to explain whether they target online advertising based on consumers' search queries and Web surfing habits.
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"It's important for Internet users and American consumers in general to understand what information is being collected about them and how it's being used,"
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"Privacy is a cornerstone of freedom," Markey said in a statement. "Online users have a right to explicitly know when their broadband provider is tracking their activity and collecting potentially sensitive and personal information."

Read the story Lawmakers demand info on Web tracking practices
A second story Legislators Seek Info on User-Tracking Software

MediaPost Publications published a story on July 1, 2008

One week after Charter Communications voiced concerns about controversial behavioral targeting company NebuAd, two other Internet service providers appear to be distancing themselves from the company.
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With broadband companies in apparent retreat from NebuAd, it's not clear what the future holds for the behavioral targeting company.

Click here to read the story

From a story at Wired News story

Charter Communications, the nation's fourth largest ISP, is indefinitely halting plans to test advertising technology that wiretaps customers' web usage, after customers criticized the idea and a powerful House Democrat raised questions about its legality.
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But a spokeswoman emphasized that Charter wasn't finished with the idea of tapping into the online advertising market

(John originally posted this in the comments.)

From Online Media Daily:

Charter Communications has delayed its plans to start sharing information with NebuAd about broadband subscribers' Web activity.

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A Charter spokesperson attributed the delay to technology issues. "It will happen when we're technologically ready," the spokesperson told Online Media Daily.

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?

A story at CNET News.com, Web monitoring for ads? It may be illegal talks about the legality of Charter's plans for monitoring every customers internet activity.

From the story:
The problem for broadband providers is that intercepting customers' Web browsing, analyzing the protocols to see what's going on, and reviewing the packets' contents starts to look a lot like wiretapping. And there are federal and state laws, complete with civil and criminal sanctions, that broadly prohibit wiretapping.

"I think Congressman (Edward) Markey is exactly right to raise this issue. The implications here are profound...Do (broadband providers) think they own that data? If they own that data, there are no limits on what can be done with it? Can they give it to an employer? Can they give it to a credit bureau? Can they give it to a potential landlord?"

For more background info about Chater's monitoring plans see Charter is watching you and Reps. Markey & Barton to Charter: please pause plans to sell customer browsing habits

Via Wormtown Taxi, nice CNN Money article:

Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who chairs the Telecommunications Subcommittee and Joe Barton, R-Texas, the full committee's senior Republican, sent a letter Friday to Charter President Neil Smit asking that the company hold off on its venture until the members can learn more about it.

For more background, see Charter Is Watching You.