An interesting report reveals that Cable One had been quietly conducting targeted advertising on its customers, but pulled the plug once pressure mounted to end such trials.It's been quite a spectacle. ISPs being under fire for privacy related issues with its own customers has frazzled more than a few nerves in the past couple of months. While the case in Germany targeted specific people the cases in Britain, Canada and the US all showed that people were being spied on en-mass for financial gain at the expense of user privacy. While the cases such as the Canadian CIPPIC one, the infamous British Phorm trials, and even the US Charter case which ended with the company backing out after pressure all seem to be almost a distant memory, a new report has recently surfaced that highlights Cable One, another US ISP admitting that it tested targeted advertising on its users. The case seems a lot like the Charter Communications case where intense public and political pressure forced the end of the trial, though it's possible that it could help charge up the ISP privacy debates again. Unfortunately, some of the key information doesn't seem to be reported on. Most of the targeted ad systems involves technology known as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). While it's been widely reported that DPI can't perform with file-sharing networks more recently in Australia and in France a while ago, Deep Packet Inspection is capable of spying on users browsing habits - a much easier task since it involves text rather than complicated media files. So one can be legitimately concerned over DPI when it comes to browsing habits if they are concerned about their privacy. Late last week, Wired's Threat Level reported on an interesting curve-ball AT&T threw at Google in the privacy debates saying that Google's ad-services are worse than AT&T's to begin with. What's more interesting is that this case is confirming that the US is taking a different approach to their British counterparts in these debates. In Britain, government officials are basically backing the targeted advertising schemes in spite of serious public concerns. Meanwhile, the US users were successful in getting lawmakers to help stop ISPs from essentially spying on their own customers - at least for now. The concepts coming out of the debate seem to be an interesting new take on the age-old debate of whether or not ISPs should merely be conduits or gate-keepers of their networks. Though instead of monitoring the content being served, they are monitoring what their users access - typically in an automated fashion. Earlier this month, the flip side of the debates was aired when an official from France pushed for mandatory ISP level filtering of file-sharing which would cause ISPs to monitor the content on their networks as opposed to what users are actually accessing. It certainly proves that variations of the network neutrality debates is still alive and well. |
 
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