showaswell
@charter.com | reply to Robert Morrisson
Re: [HSI] Charter to monitor surfing, insert its own targeted ad
lol@ replying to three month old comments. |
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Robert Morrisson
join:2000-03-31
Silver Spring, MD
| reply to DA
Why twelve months? Why not forever?
Should it be necessary for the consumer to notify every company they deal with that they do not want to receive advertising, or credit card offers, or whatever.
Why not make it encumbent on the company to secure permission before providing the service. If they had to do this I suspect no one would opt in. That is why they want to force you to opt out.
Congress set the stage for this with the bank privacy statements. It was discovered that they were selling your information without permission. Our brilliant elected representatives said that all that was needed to correct the problem was to allow those who did NOT want this to happen to opt out of it.
Now we have opt-out for everything. The sneaky marketers can come up with new schemes faster than you or I can opt out of them.
It was the Republican Congress that gave the OK to this. It was the Democratic President Clinton that signed off on it. The public was screwed, but at least it was a bi-partisan screwing. |
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Robert Morrisson
join:2000-03-31
Silver Spring, MD
| reply to BF69
Verizon is playing games with their FiOS service. They are hijacking your browser to intercept improper DNS requests and turning them into a search.
If you enter a Web address incorrectly, instead of getting an error, and a chance to correct it, you now get a search window with the wrong information entered, along with a note asking if you want to search for it.
The address bar will be filled with a mega-URL filled that makes it impossible to simply correct the original error.
No doubt Verizon makes money sending people to various Websites. I flat WILL NOT search from a forced search bar from Verizon, MSN, or anyone. This whole concept of hijacking DNS is getting out of control.
Verizon said it is more convenient and many people like it. I suspect they just put up with it. I demanded an explanation from them as to why they saw fit to alter my browsing and was promised one. Hell will freeze over before they reply.
I was given a fix to eliminate the problem, one that involves changing the DNS servers in the router. The problem is that I must then enter all of the other information manually, including the IP address. If that changes my router will suddenly die until I manually update it.
When will the ISPs learn that most of us want to have an IP socket and good service, without being forced to see yet more annoying ads or being forced into a search bar.
If I can't trust them for basic services such as DNS, why trust them with anythine else?
BTW - FiOS has been excellent and Verizon has been quite good to deal with. But someone needs to put a stop to this practice of hijacking DNS for profit. |
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haplo2112
join:2003-05-12
Charlton, MA
| reply to wombatclov
You go back and get another one, and then another and then another. They are counting on you to eventually forget.
Charter just like every other company is EVIL, pure EVIL, CEO's are the devil. Having to buy services from them is ever lasting torment in HELL.
Burn 'em all to the ground, Slaughter the executives for pig feed, give the land back to the Native Americans, and the rest of us can all go native.
Seriously I give up its all hopeless. We the consumers and citizens of America are doomed to ever lasting torment and servitude, our government no longer cares for our needs and desires. Politicians only listen to and care about what the corporations want. We the people no longer matter. Its either give in and be crushed by their boot heels, or start the revolution, and I don't think I have the revolution in me. |
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wombatclov
join:2002-10-16
Easthampton, MA |  reply to cjhorh
So did anyone actually look at the cookie? It expires November 28th of 2008! Then what happens? |
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raw
War Eagle
Premium
join:2001-01-17
Madison, AL
clubs: | reply to haplo2112
"....and a local government that won't let us cherry pick" |
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haplo2112
join:2003-05-12
Charlton, MA | reply to jarablue
Read between the lines...
"too big a market with huge low income areas that will not effectively make us any money" |
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jarablue
Always be true to yourself
join:2001-06-11
Worcester, MA | reply to vaxvms
Yes I know. That is my point. No one wants to come here. And Charter laps it up.
The odd thing is Worcester is too big a market but NY is not for Verizon? Makes no sense. |
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vaxvms
ferroequine fan
Premium
join:2005-03-01
Worcester, MA
 ·Charter Pipeline
| reply to jarablue
said by jarablue  :If FIOS or anything competitive came to Worcester, Charter would pull their franchise in Mass. [OT]
Worcester renewed its contract with Charter in March. No other ISP was interested in bidding.
Verizon FiOS ain't gonna happen. When asked about Verizon moving into Worcester, Phil Santoro, a spokesman for Verizon, says that at this point, the company considers Worcester too big a market. |
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jarablue
Always be true to yourself
join:2001-06-11
Worcester, MA
2 edits | reply to cjhorh
If FIOS or anything competitive came to Worcester, Charter would pull their franchise in Mass. They are hated to the point of please come someone, anyone HELP! mentaility here.
Charter year after year, on a almost scheduled basis, sticks it's head up it's ass.
Who the hell is the CEO of Charter nowadays? Is it still Mr let me come into the helpdesk for 1 hour, smile then leave guy?
Charter wake the hell up. Your customers do not want you to do this. Guess what? You know what we want? Better service, faster speeds, latency, content, infrastructure. VOD that actually works etc. But you have no idea how to do this because in doing that, would mean doing what your customers really want...and that is a no no and costs $$
Doing what's best for the company is actually a step backwards to you, Charter.
Christ. Can this company suck to any lower level? Ugh. |
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from oxford area
@charter.com
| reply to cjhorh
I am in the affected Charter area of Oxford.
Now that my internet usage information is being sold by Charter, I would like my free internet service now!
I keep seeing the cable/internet bill rising substantially above inflation y/y (7+ years), not decreasing.
I've got no choice for internet service providers.
HELP!!!!!!
The cookie opt-out method is crap! It is limited to computer user account and device. Good luck trying to get all your computers and user accounts to work with the cookie opt-out method.
They make it on purpose obviously making it difficult so that users fail - you can't even check the status of it to see they got it correct or if it is operating properly,
They can just say "something must have gone wrong" - besides but no one will ever know; there is absolutely no oversight to this.
BTW - you've got to provide them with information to opt-out - it is not enough to determine where your communications are coming from which would be obvious) |
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LAWLZ
@insightbb.com
| reply to clickie
said by clickie :You have the wrong idea on what is going on here. Nebuad takes your web browsing history, generates a bunch of categories it thinks you'd be receptive to seeing ads about, and then uses that database coupled with your unique "ID" (ostensibly generated from the MAC address of your cable modem) and then sells that information to advertising syndication services *like* Google Adwords, *like* Valueclick. Those people pay a premium for having the targeting information. Charter isn't overwriting anyone's ad space. I would have to agree with you on this. there is no invasion of privacy. Charter doesn't care to have any sort of personal information, nor do we want it. Plus, what are you people searching for on the internet that has everyone so up in arms? I wouldn't care if my ISP started doing this, and they probably will soon, as every ISP will start following this as well. If I search for something, I wants to best and most related articles/ads to come up fist so I don't have to search through 60 pages of links and ads to find what I was looking for exactly. Call me lazy. |
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haplo2112
join:2003-05-12
Charlton, MA
| reply to cjhorh
Our town Charlton is re-doing the franchise agreement, if anyone else around here is from Charlton perhaps it might be a good idea to suggest to the town that either we not renew Charter and invite other companies in to talk; or that language be added that town of Charlton residents not be tracked for any and all purposes. |
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pbarrow
Premium
join:2003-09-16
Montgomery, AL | reply to Jane_Doughy
Well I don't expect it to do any good - but I emailed the 2 articles here about Charter and Broadstripe and "deep packet inspection" to several of the TV news organizations suggesting they do a news report on it. |
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Jane_Doughy
@charter.com
| reply to cjhorh
I think it great that anon posters (and most likely employees) from TDS and Centurytel are here posting, considering they are Charter's main cometion where I live. I don't blame them for trying to cash in on this. I found an interesting article on the net
»www.boingboing.net/2008/05/15/an···fou.html |
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clickie
join:2005-05-22
Monroe, MI
| reply to cjhorh
There's a hole in the argument that this Nebuad concept does not link you personally. That's false.
The whole idea behind Nebuad is to assist people in getting you to buy things. So if you click on an ad, I'm certain that feedback is given to Nebuad. You go to the merchant, who may or may not know you via your hashed id, and the second you buy something, they know who you are.
So while Charter may not provide personally identifiable information, the premise that over time Nebuad doesn't know your identity is suspect. These marketing companies love to keep data and share data, and I'm certain that they all know who you are the second you purchase something used by an ad from their servers. |
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haplo2112
join:2003-05-12
Charlton, MA | reply to haplo2112
»craphound.com/littlebrother/
Good book relevant to the topic in many ways. |
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mosxs
join:2008-04-23
Hesperia, CA
| reply to cjhorh
Well, if this rolls out nationwide, I'll definitely be canceling my Charter service.
Even if I have to pay Verizon $50 a month for 1.5Mbps DSL on Dry Loop while I wait for FiOS.
I'm certainly not giving Charter my money to spy on me. If they want to insert ads then they need to drop the price of the service significantly. |
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anony1
@charter.com | reply to cjhorh
I say we start using:
»www.antiphorm.com/page_software.htm
on Charter. It simulates random surfing to mux up their stats. |
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Time4AnewISP
@centurytel.net
| reply to cjhorh
to those who think "I don't have anything to hide" or think that their opt out is sufficient... read on:
Charter is placing 3rd party snooping servers between YOU and the INTERNET. ALL traffic will get inspected, recorded, logged.. ALL traffic. REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU OPT OUT OR NOT.
OPTing out simply means that the third party advertiser won't deliver the "super-ultra-targeted" ads to you; you'd still see whatever ad was originally going to display anyway... they will still get to see and record all your internet traffic. Note the "cookie based" opt out would only be (marginally) effective as a method of tracking 'opt out status' (for targeted ad display) on port 80; the standard web (http) port.. mail, NNTP, ftp, torrents, non-standard web ports, irc, etc... all still subject to total surveillance...
Current technology on the 'deep inspection' and analysis front is very sophisticated and very capable, which will give Charter very solid data on which they could build discriminatory and anticompetitive traffic shaping rules (for their next "enhancement").
EVEN if all they log for eternity is clickstreams.. URLs contain search terms; and often contain usernames and/or passwords or other sensitive data.. besides the obvious of identifying every single specific web page, graphic, media file, etc. your browser accesses. Cookies and httpauth credentials are transferred on every page view which uses either of those items.
The 'prefetch' feature in some browsers can even cause items to be archived and logged that you never did specifically request and/or view.. and those could be potentially harmful or at the very least, embarrassing.
Law enforcement will be drooling over this.. Imagine internet providers willfully logging and archiving all their user's internet traffic... makes their goal of total surveillance that much easier; no red tape or pesky constitution getting in the way of their prize, and they can just use an NSL or claim 'terrorist investigation' and get what they want WITHOUT a WARRANT at all.
INNOCENT PEOPLE are targeted by "investigations" all the time. Just because you think you have nothing to hide or nothing to worry about.. doesn't make it so! Just look at the "no fly list"-- how many thousands of innocent people are on that list? (answer: lots) how many more (thousands upon thousands) people with similar or same names as those on the list are also affected? (answer: lots more)
Remember that AOL search log fiasco awhile ago? that was just search terms and supposedly 'anonymized' id's; yet many personal, sensitive, and at times, embarrassing details where in there.. and some of those were able to be tracked back to the original individual. What Charter is doing, and allowing to be done on their network, is FAR, FAR WORSE.
since the very early days of commercial internet access, people have been renting 'dumb pipes' --- internet access today must return to that status... broadband is 'big dumb pipes'.. period. the users don't want broken DNS servers making money for ISPs off the user's typos... and users do NOT WANT TO BE SPIED ON BY ANYONE, regardless of reason or intent.
**IF** broadband providers cannot "make enough money" on the packages they're selling if they simply provide 'big dumb pipes' -- then those packages need to be adjusted, both for speed and price. Charter: a 16 mbit connection should cost a tad bit more than just 10 bucks a month more than a 3 mbit connection.. ya think?
a nickel here, a dime there (for insane speed upgrades), and discontinuing the much slower speeds (and lower rates) that most people actually WANT, are what got you into the bandwidth bind in the first place..... con, trick or force people into the fastest speed you got then you better EXPECT that speed to be used.. sheesh. it's just farkin COMMON SENSE. charge enough to not go bankrupt... and with just one primary competitor (the local telco) in any given market, it shouldn't be that friggin hard... for every person that's PO'd at a cable company, you'll find one that's equally PO'd at the telco.. the former will flock to the telco, the latter to the cable company..
SELLING OUT via poisoned and broken DNS, and via selling your customers' online soul ARE NOT WORTH IT. an across the board rate hike of $5.00 (that'd be a SMALL one for you guys... our last hikes were two consecutive $20 ones; $41 extra/mo when it finally settled down) would more than make up for those and whatever other messed up ideas you got brewing. BUT, i'd rather see a return of the 384 kbit and 1.5 mbit speeds for $15 and $25.. as people migrate back to the slower speeds, including some of the more price-conscious 'heavy users, the network congestion will ease (but then there isn't a bandwidth crunch in many markets..... so you might even be able to scale back on your upstream connections).
once people settle in on the slower speeds, you RAISE the price on the "troublesome" fastest speeds, where the heavy users and abusers are.. they'll either cough up the cash, downgrade, or they'll leave.. if they leave, then you don't have to worry anymore either (you weren't making any money off them anyway, so what difference would it have been: status quo where you were losing money on 'em or lose the customer and not lose any more money).
** the above is based on 'worst case' scenario.. where charter, the third party 'provider' and government cannot be trusted... which, of course, they cannot be.. not really... not to watch out for your interest or mine.. they could care less. all they care about is their bottom lines and absolute control.
so you decide.. is the above more likely, or is this: strict privacy policies that are adhered to, data retention is modest, with proper secure data wiping techniques being employed... the companies involved fight off requests for data/warrants to protect their users... servers and data centers comply with security standards similar to hipaa, sas70, etc... opt out really means you opt out, completely... prices not going up (again), or actually go down, because of the cash they're raking in on this sell out... |
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