While Charter recently got all the bad PR for their decision to sell your browsing data to NebuAD, they certainly weren't the only ISP tinkering with the technology. Congress now appears to be looking into Embarq's recent NebuAD trial, sending the company a letter asking them precise details about the trial, including how many customers were impacted, in which markets the trial was conducted, and just how those customers were informed.Of course like many ISPs, Embarq announced the trial by burying it in their privacy policy. Once the press and Congress started hammering Charter, Embarq, like several other ISPs (Centurytel), acted quickly to distance themselves from their use of the technology. Until just the last few weeks, Embarq's privacy policy still referenced the trial, but has since been scrubbed. This is what their privacy policy used to say:Of course there was no mention that NebuAD's opt-out system only opts you out of receiving personalized ads -- it does not stop your browsing history from being tracked and sold to NebuAD. That flaky opt-out system potentially puts all ISPs who used this system on pretty shaky legal ground, which is why Congress has started poking around. Judging from ISP reactions, it's pretty clear they know they face legal risk.

With Congress suddenly so concerned about users being notified before their browsing history is sold, it's interesting they've never investigated the ISP sale of clickstream data. ISPs generally don't comment on that, but it's estimated they make about $5 per user, per month off of the sales. Your authorization for them to do so is also generally buried in vague legalese in your end user license agreement, and there's no way to opt out.