Charter Communications To Track All The Sites You Visit

Now this really grinds my gears: Charter Communications, a cable ISP, has sent letters to a few hundred thousand subscribers telling subscribers that Charter will now begin tracking every single site that customers visit, and then selling that information to NebuAd, an advertising company, in order to increase its revenues.

Are you kidding me? At least to Charter Communication's credit, they've got the balls to actually come out and tell their customers what scummy tactics they're going to employ, unlike Comcast who does everything to hide their sleazy practices.

However, their outright honesty doesn't improve the ridiculous intrusion into their subscriber's privacy, and Charter Communication's senior vice president of product management, Ted Schremp, gives an almost point by point regurgitation of the typical PR BS that accompanies wanton destruction of customer's privacy rights:

Charter is taking "for the most part, a high road approach," according to Mr. Schremp. "We have told customers exactly what we are doing," he said. The letter to customers, he added, was "very forthcoming" and "not buried in mouse type and legal disclosures."

The five-paragraph letter positioned the monitoring program as an "an enhanced online experience that is more customized to your interests and activities."

"As a result,'' the letter said, "the advertising you typically see online will better reflect the interests you express through your web-surfing activity. You will not see more ads -- just ads that are more relevant to you."

Yeah, great, because what we all want is even more advertising that is the result of you tracking my every move. W00T! </sarcasm>

Don't get me wrong, I know advertising is the lifeblood of the Internet. Hell, if it wasn't for the advertisers we have Homotron wouldn't exist and I wouldn't be communicating this to you.

BUT, there's a big difference between content makers like us putting advertising on our own website and an ISP tracking your every move and using that to add extra advertising content on top of sites in order to "increase revenue."

Ted Shcremp did tell the NYT that customers would be able to opt-out of the system, but that's hardly a solution. A default of opt-in with an option of opt-out is never a consumer friendly option, and it's a lesson that Facebook learned the hard way when it debuted its Beacon ad service a few months ago and incurred the wrath of privacy advocates everywhere.

For now, the programme is in a trial phase in Fort Worth, Tex.; San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Oxford, Mass.; and Newtown, Conn. If the trial goes well, Charter Communications will then roll out the programme to the rest of its 2.8 million subscribers.

If you're a Charter Communications customer, watch your mailbox for their letter and make sure to opt-out of this ridiculous programme.

Charter Will Monitor Customers' Web Surfing to Target Ads [NYT]