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40 Comments
- Reddog_x2000, on 06/06/2008, -1/+39Charter is acting stupidly for 2 reasons. First, they are violating their users privacy. Second, the whole reason ISPs were exempted from liability for the illegal downloads coming across their networks was that they were common carriers. That is, they DIDN'T do deep packet inspection & weren't playing traffic cop. If they start doing deep packet inspection, they risk losing that protection.
- nova912, on 06/07/2008, -0/+17Charter is bad to begin with (im sending this over their network =/ ) but this is just complete *****. There comes a point when the 'service' you pay for is lost, and this is it. I feel the same way about TiVO and their Ads in every section of the device... i pay a monthly charge to get advertised to... at least cut my rate if you're going to make revenue off my back.
That sad part is that they (charter) offer an "opt OUT" policy, after some digging I found the page to "opt out" but, o, guess what, unless they introduce this to your area you can opt out. I'm sure they are going to make an extra effort to let people know when it becomes available...
Charter is a sleazy company to begin with, but this is just consumer abuse. - bagelmaster, on 06/07/2008, -1/+7Who else is there to trust? Private companies? Lol.
- kn3x, on 06/07/2008, -1/+7a choice between two mafias is not much of a choice at all, so you'll have to excuse me for not deciding on a 'lesser of the two evils'.
- inactive, on 06/07/2008, -2/+6The iternetz is cool but,I know of nobody on the planet that would ever, ever want this type of gross & intrusive service.
- hogrod, on 06/07/2008, -0/+4The opt out system is a joke, its cookie based so any time you clear your browser cache you will have to opt out again.
- tuntcickle, on 06/07/2008, -0/+4"Clearly, an opt-out service doesn't fit meet this standard. As Markey stated, 'Simply providing a method for users to opt-out of the program is not the same has asking users to affirmatively agree to participate in the program.'"
Summary: old people will get hosed.
But why is this kind of packet inspection/profile-building a bad thing in regards to your own welfare? Well, ask yourself "why should I have to feel like someone's looking over my shoulder the whole time I'm on the internet?" This kind of big brother behavior-tracking opens the door to any number of Fourth Amendment abuses by federal law enforcement agencies, not to mention ad companies that can't secure your personal information for *****. - kn3x, on 06/07/2008, -1/+4You make very good points. However, why are we trusting an organization that systematically violates privacy (the gov't) to protect our privacy?
- qweenie, on 06/07/2008, -4/+7next they will want my social security # and credit score
- whittmadden, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3and how would we accomplish this? I'm asking because I want to know.
- mrsteveman1, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3Why are they mutually exclusive?
I expect them to do both, at the same time, while wearing a ***** clown suit and singing folk tunes.
Yes, it would be less silly than what they do every day. - inactive, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3As if they did not already have those.
- whatwhatwhoa, on 06/07/2008, -0/+3Adsense already reads the content of the page and finds Ads that are most relevant. This on the other hand keeps track of the websites you use and the content on the website. Its like, a super tracking-cookie. And who wants that? This is basically free spyware along with your User Agreement.
- PopcornDave, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2It would be more than they do on any given day.
- dadanen, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2Hehe, well I do find this kinda annoying and irritating...and somewhat funny. I can imagine the call volume they would get if this hit mainstream, since everyone is likes their privacy. On an off note, this is the first submission I've seen on Charter for a while that has hit the front page on digg, mostly I've seen Comcast on here.
- PopcornDave, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2I'm curious as to how this would be affected over a Tor network. Wouldn't that screw their whole marketing scheme?
- weedweasel, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2If they try this, they are out of my house period. I don't care how innocuous it sounds. Hello dish network.
- PopcornDave, on 06/07/2008, -0/+2I'm getting ***** sick and tired of that straw argument. I may not be doing anything illegal today, by today's laws. However today's legal actions could very well become tomorrow's illegal actions and you haven't changed a thing. Still want to bleat that old canard?
- mrsteveman1, on 06/07/2008, -2/+3Thats a nice idealistic position to take, ignoring those 2 evils.
They still exist, you just don't want to choose. - Travelsonic, on 06/07/2008, -1/+2If you say "you have nothing to hide" with confidence, you sir are fooling only yourself, and helping deceive many others.
- whatwhatwhoa, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1People of the internet! We must unite to save our way of e-life! First NSA, then Comcast's torrent dropping and bandwidth cap, now this! We must take action quickly.
- Glorydies, on 06/07/2008, -1/+2In my area Charter Comm. was bought out by Suddenlink Comm. Does anyone know if this would apply to Sunddenlink customers as well?
- NVMojo, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Well, Charter sent me a free download for the new Charter toolbar this week. I didn't download it. Wonder if that was one way to track for ads?
- Barackalypse, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1Don't tell Congress it is possible to track web surfing, these morons are the same ones that allow wiretapping of your phone calls.
- antdude, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1All these companies are getting bad!!
- jaznova, on 06/07/2008, -0/+1$
- inactive, on 08/06/2008, -0/+0Hehe, well I do find this kinda annoying and irritating...and somewhat funny. I can imagine the call volume they would get if this hit mainstream, since everyone is likes their privacy. On an off note, this is the first submission I've seen on Charter for a while that has hit the front page on digg, mostly I've seen Comcast on here.
http://xn----zmcjonx1gxa6aza.xn----ymcae0df5a6fo.c ...
http://ladies.paramegsoft.com/
http://game.paramegsoft.com/
http://download.paramegsoft.com/ - mojotooth, on 06/07/2008, -1/+1Dugg for the thumbnail of John Tesh or whoever the hell that is
- rshaan, on 06/07/2008, -6/+6dood calm down, first we gotta figure out how steroid use in private sports organizations are affecting our country! let congress set its own agenda!
- gondath, on 06/08/2008, -0/+0I use Charter, and I can't believe they are doing this. There is no reason they should be monitoring what I am doing on the internet. Are they really so greedy that they need to siphon off ad revenue from their own paying customers? It's just plain ridiculous. I just don't see why paying customers need to be snooped on for Charter to make even more money. They already throttle you if you download too much in too short of a timespan. I guess I should have seen this coming.
- arkaycee, on 06/07/2008, -0/+0Two things:
I figure the government's already doing deep packet inspection as part of their wiretap-everything policy (yes, those secret locked rooms in all the major telco company hubs act as a "second network backbone", they don't just route phone switches back there), so there's an irony to this story.
I don't know if I'd mind truly "relevant, targeted ads" that worked right. So far I've heard that tried dozens of ways over the last dozen years or so. Most of the time, apparently somehow they conclude from my websurfing (mostly techie-related) that I'm impotent and need Viagra, yet somehow in my total inability to get it up, I want to buy porn. Or if they do actually seem vaguely targetetd they want to sell me knock-offs of what I'm really interested in (top-of-the line antivirus software? We has that, even if you've never heard of ours, nor can you find a reputable comparative review anywhere online). Or finally, even if it is a product I'm interested in, either it points me at a site that charges way more than I can get it for elsewhere, or to a site that seems (or is listed as being) disreputable. - inactive, on 06/07/2008, -1/+1For a business this could mean big trouble. If they inspect packets in a company that has one guy surfing golf sites, will everyone end up with adds for golf equipment? I used golf instead of porn so that I wouldn't seem too worried....
- bluenash, on 06/07/2008, -1/+1Rescue me Spybot!
- MnMs, on 06/07/2008, -3/+2Charter customer here. You can tell because 56K users can packet me and I'll drop. (soemtimes in the night my internet tubes becaome unclogged and i can totally withstand a 400kbps DDOS attack)
- LordBoreal51, on 06/07/2008, -5/+3Wow. This is like a gathering place for those who use poor grammar.
- Imber, on 06/07/2008, -7/+3Serious question: Can someone explain to me why this is a problem? I'm a Charter customer, and I checked out the opt-out link from the article. If the description of the program there is true and correct, they aren't gathering or releasing any personally identifiable information at all. So, from what I understand, it's not much different than a lot of the other types of information gathering going on on the internet and elsewhere. Is it really much different than the websites that read from a cookie my zip code and then tell me I can meet chicks in my area? Is it really any different than what google probably does with search results, especially if you're "logged in" with a gmail account?
Personally, if I'm gonna see ads, I'd rather have ads that I might possibly be interested in than those awful "You're the 1,000,000th visitor" ads that vibrate and make all the noise that are all over the place right now, or the ads that launch into a voice-clip telling me I've won a free iPod Nano.
Isn't the worst of it that it might possibly slow down the network some? Are they not to be trusted that they're not collecting and sharing personally identifiable information? Or is the concern that the information might be vulnerable somehow, even though they don't intend to share it as personally identifiable information? Or is the issue that they're collecting the data sereptitiously?
I fully admit to paying almost no attention to protecting my online privacy...someone help me understand. :) - dojonz, on 06/07/2008, -6/+1I don't think that many ad agencies are really so sophisticated that they could use that data.
- inactive, on 06/07/2008, -6/+1This is ***** up for a webmasters point of view. Take digg for example. i don't think they would want a ISP placing, and gather ads from what there users do on there site. They would loose money because of that.
- inactive, on 06/07/2008, -9/+0You should have no problem with it if you have nothing to hide!
- cinmrc, on 06/07/2008, -12/+0if this terns out to be true, Charter violated its user privacy, and that's ***** up. but congress should spend our tax money on figuring out how to deal with rising energy cost and investing in alternative energy sources ...
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