First They Came for the J…..

Big Brother has finally arrived my friends. But the threat comes not from the government but from corporations. They go by names like Knology, and NebuAd. They pray to the altar of profit at any cost. How do we know they do so? They slither in the shadows not wanting to be known that they do deep packet analysis on everything you send via your ISP. They hide their motives deep in the user agreement that your ISP makes you sign. They make you opt-out, if you become aware, rather than permitting you to have an opt-in instead. They are the crack dealer of the internet world.

In England, Phorm is expected in the coming weeks to launch its monitoring service with BT, Britain’s largest Internet broadband provider.

NebuAd and Front Porch declined to name the U.S. service providers they are working with, saying it’s up to the providers to announce how they deal with consumer data.

Some service providers, such as Embarq and Wide Open West, or WOW, have altered their customer-service agreements to permit the monitoring.

Embarq describes the monitoring as a “preference advertising service.” Wide Open West tells customers it is working with a third-party advertising network and names NebuAd as its partner.

Officials at WOW and Embarq declined to talk about any monitoring that has been done.

Each company allows users to opt out of the monitoring, though that permission is buried in customer service documents. The opt-out systems work by planting a “cookie,” or a small file left on a user’s computer. Each uses a cookie created by NebuAd.

Officials at another service provider, Knology, said it was working with NebuAd and is conducting a test of deep-packet inspection on “several hundred” customers in a service area it declined to identify.

Any company that declines any inquiry of this nature should be treated with suspicion.

I think it is time that the No Call List be expanded to force such companies that partitiptation must be opt-in. Not only that if my name is on the list the onus is on them that I not be scanned, folded and mutilated by their schemes. Applicable fines should be levied for non compliance on a per user infraction basis.

Read the Washington Post below in full.

Linky.