Charter Communications is sending letters to its customers informing them of an “enhanced online experience” that involves Charter monitoring its users’ searches and the websites they visit, and inserting targeted third-party ads based on their web activity. Charter, which serves nearly six million customers, is requiring users who want to keep their activity private to submit their personal information to Charter via an unencrypted form and download a privacy cookie that must be downloaded again each time a user clears his web cache or uses a different browser.
Reader Matt copied us on a letter he sent to Charter’s VP of Customer Operations and CEO:
Dear Mr. Stackhouse,
I am a high speed internet subscriber in the Fort Worth, TX area. For the last year or so I have had Charter’s 10 Megabit service and I am a satisfied customer. I am writing, however, because I am concerned by your recent letter discussing the “enhancement” that will be coming soon to my Charter web browsing experience (targeted, in-line advertisement manipulation). I appreciate Charter’s respect for my privacy, but the method that Charter has provided to opt-out of this tracking scheme is insecure and woefully inadequate.
The method that you provide to opt-out is as follows. First, a customer must visit http://www.charter.com/onlineprivacy. Once at the site, the customer must enter his or her complete name and address. Upon submission of this personal information, the customer must accept a cookie from Charter that indicates his or her opt-out status. While this process sounds simple on face, further consideration reveals that this opt-out method is fraught with privacy concerns and places the burden on your paying customer, rather than Charter.
The most pressing privacy issue with this opt-out method is that the opt-out form presented at the aforementioned URL is not encrypted. As I’m sure you realize, this means that a user submitting his or her address to Charter is doing so in the clear, leaving this personal information open to eavesdropping. It is not difficult to create an SSL-encrypted web form. It is troubling that Charter has not done so in this case.
The fact that this opt-out system relies on a cookie to keep users opted out is also a privacy issue. By telling customers who visit the opt-out page that, “if you delete your cookies or cache files… you will have to opt-out again,” you are encouraging users to keep those files that good privacy practices dictate should be frequently purged. Ironically, the best reason to purge one’s cookies often is to prevent internet marketers from tracking one’s behavior online.
In addition to the critical privacy concerns, the steps required to avoid being tracked by this new advertising system place the burden on your customers, rather than on Charter where it belongs. A customer should be able to opt-out of this advertising tracking system in a manner that will rarely, if ever, require the customer to opt-out again. Instead, because the system uses cookies, a customer must insecurely opt-out of being tracked on each PC in his or her home. Further compounding the work that the customer has to do, if the he or she deletes cookies in accordance with safe browsing techniques, it will be necessary to insecurely opt-out on each and every PC again.
I suggest that rather than force your customers through unending iterations of opting out of this advertising system, you should allow customers like me to opt-out at the cable modem level via a secure, encrypted form on your website. I’m glad to hear that Charter has an appreciation for my privacy, but please change your opt-out process to demonstrate that you also have an appreciation for my time and security online.
Matt’s letter focuses on the flawed opt-out clause, but the program itself, an implementation of “deep packet inspection,” is more worrying to us. Deep packet inspection allows an ISP to monitor not only its users searches and visited websites, but also the type of activity (e.g., email or peer-to-peer), which could be used for traffic shaping and threatens net neutrality.
Charter to Monitor Surfing, Insert Its Own Targeted Ads [DSLReports]
(Photo: Getty)
More From Consumerist
-
Charter Admits It Shouldn’t Charge Customer Modem Fee, Keeps Charging Her Anyway
-
Google On The Hook For A Record $22.5 Million In Safari Privacy Case
-
List Of Companies With Worst Customer Service Scores Is Full Of Familiar Names
-
Charter Ends Twitter And Facebook Customer Support
-
Some Of Those Threats Weren’t Empty: 25% Of Instagram Users May Have Quit Over TOS
@ironchef:
Again, just change your DNS settings, it’s very easy.
This kind of crap makes me glad I am my own ISP.
Oh one more thing. The cookie that Charter sets has an expiration date of exactly one year from the date it’s set. To the experts out there– can this cookie auto-extend itself somehow, or will all this opt-out stuff be moot in 12 months and suscribers won’t realize it and start seeing the ads anyway?
Sounds like the “don’t call” list that expires anyway.
@cuddles71: Down here in North Georgia, Windstream is still hijacking my mistyped web addresses. It redirects to their own search engine that uses yahoo ads. It is absolute bullshit. I can’t believe a company would redirect my web pages and stuff more money in their pockets. If I try to opt out, I have to re-download the cookie every time.
@Big Flicker: Wanna post a link to your company? Maybe some of us want to sign up.
Have you ever noticed that the only reason companies use “opt-out” on a program is because if they made it “opt-in,” no one would…
@Buran:
You can’t get Naked DSL through AT&T?
Wide Open West just recently implemented this in the Chicago area. Their process is a tad more secure, and less burdensome. You need only follow a link, sent in the email, to opt out. There’s no form to fill out, or personal information sent. You only have to deal with the cookie thing. Aggravating? Yes. I would rather deal with honest manipulation of my traffic, rather than the dishonest kind (I’m looking at you, COMCAST!)…
Gosh whats next? Will phone companies monitor our calls and provide the information to…. oh crap nevermind….
Here’s a question I think I’ve asked before: Why do you still get ads even if you pay for the service?
I am paying for my Interlog service. Why do they need to show ads? Is it to subsidize the cost or is it to generate revenue?
@cuddles71:
Do you have any support for this 18% assertion?
I took a look, and Windstream’s been adding 40-60k DSL subscribers/quarter for the last 3 years, and added 40k DSL subscribers in the first quarter of 2008. Not only has there been no decline in subscribers, the growth hasn’t slowed either.
@linus:
It’s the same thing – revenue comes from either ads or fees.
This is viewed, by most people (not all, but most), as a pretty painless thing. Particularly the branded 404 pages – people don’t seem to care whether they get a firefox 404 page or Comcast’s, it still tells them they got the address wrong.
I tried changing my DNS settings with Charter and after two days nothing worked. Actually, my settings were the same and OpenDNS picked up on me, but Charter did something on their end to make it not work.
Since they have implemented this, and other strategies to monitor and control your online behavior, I’m debating just using my phone for e-mail and browsing at work using our local ISP – who I hate for billing reasons only.
@Victo: Believe me, we’ve been trying for years. AT&T doesn’t have DSL in our neighborhood, so Charter is our only option for broadband.
@Alex Chasick: If it’s not Phorm, it’s still basically the same thing. My current ISP in the UK is one of those who had signed up for it, but is now backpedaling after the backlash.
Oh, well, in another month I move to Oslo… I haven’t seen anything about them doing this crap there. I guess I’ll find out.
@scoosdad: Cookies don’t automatically renew unless the source resets them during your next visit. In other words, you have to go through the process again, regardless.
This is ridiculous. If I was a Charter customer I would of canceled my service by now.
Start doing a whole bunch of bogus searches. Do searches for “Chinese monkey porn” or “Executive Email Carpet Bomb” or “excuse me, where are the nuclear vessels?” That’ll fix ‘em.
@Steaming Pile: Even better, have someone make a widget that goes out and searches for a bunch of bogus search terms constantly when the user isn’t on their system. Have angry Charter customers implement it on their systems to run whenever they are inactive. It will eat up bandwidth and erode their data mining.
Previously, if I misspelled a URL, I’d get the default 404 message from whatever browser I was using. Now, I automatically land in an advertisement filled Verizon search page.
@azntg: Yeah, Charter was doing that too before I switched to AT&T.
@Jaysyn: They make it very difficult to get.
@elisa: I know, I hate that SO much! I also hate that you even have to opt-out in the first place. If it’s an enhancement why not make the people who want it opt-in? Oh wait, because nobody would want to be spyed on or fed more ads!
List of companies who can go fuck themselves this morning:
1) Charter
Charter customer, already using OpenDNS for performance reasons. Not happy with this threat of invasion of privacy. I already cut the cable with the phone company and went VOIP over Charter broadband, maybe it’s time to run the whole house network over EVDO (does VOIP do well over EVDO?)
Charter is service going to be free or significantly cheaper now that you are milking your customer’s data streams and selling off advertising? This is low.
Hey, direct marketing! Just what everyone wants Charter! Man, do they know their customers or what?
Sigh, If Charter & the rest of the ISPs had there way, we’d pay them $50.00 a month for nothing more than the right to sit and watch ads all day long. Actually using the service they are selling seems like it is a huge inconvenience to these companies.
A simple solution for ISPs that feel they need to augment their income with ads pushed to their paying customers: – Price your service appropriately and offer a discount to those that are willing to subject themselves to even more “targeted” advertising. Instead we get this BS, where you can only sort of opt-out on a temporary basis, in other words “you can’t really opt-out”.
@JustThatGuy3: I understand it still gives the user the same information; the question still comes down to why.
Verizon, Comcast, Cox, et al. seem to have put some money to create a page that searches your query if the site doesn’t really exist. On this page includes ads. If they never made the special page, we would get a default “Your page was not found” by your browser.
Why does this page even exist? It seems like another way for the ISPs to make money at the expense of the customer.
@scoosdad: 2. And you’d be using Charter mail for what reason?
I think you’re right on that most of the people affected by this are the people dumb enough to set their homepage to Charter. Most other ISPs have some sort of data collection too, so lets not give Charter all the credit here.
Centurytel will be doing this as well. A customer can opt out.
How is this not illegal under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act?
So wait … if a Charter user visits a web page I run, they will be presented with a modified version of the page including Charter-sponsored ads?
I can’t wait until a Charter user visits one of my sites, then, so I can sue Charter for copyright infringement.
And here I am thinking that charter is the last decent ISP.
That is what TOR and I2p and Freenet are for
Huge Copyright infringement liability here. I’m surprised their legal department allowed this.
TOR I2p and Freenet. Done
Just called and confirmed this all with Charter, after explaining to two reps what “opt-out” meant and sending them scrambling to get in touch with their “security departmet” since niether had ever heard of the service. I asked to be transferred to cancellation on the spot after confirming it was opt-out only and required the download of the opt-out cookie every time the cache/cookies are cleared. The second rep was in disbelief that I routinely deleted my internet cookies.
I do have to say though, the cancellation rep was the most pleasant person I have talked to in ages. Very nice lady from a South Carolina call center.
Wow, and just a day or so ago I thought I couldn’t have been happier to move out of an area that was only served by Charter. I was wrong.
Of course, now the provider I currently have will get the brainstorm to copy the idea and I’ll be right up the creek with everyone still stuck with Charter.
Honestly, Charter is one of the worst companies I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to deal with. My condolences to all the Consumerist readers who are still stuck with them.
@speedeep: While I haven’t actually tried it, I’d expect conventional voip to sound fairly crappy over evdo, there’s usually significantly more latency for the evdo connection as compared to a decent wired broadband connection.
@bohemian: someone’s already made this: it’s an extension called trackmenot!
Two thoughts:
Use open dns so your name server requests aren’t telling these louts where you are going ( this one is free and easy … everyone should be doing it ):
[www.opendns.com]
Use an encrypted proxy service, or if you can’t afford a paid one, use Tor:
[www.torproject.org]
Ad block is nice … but I am more concerned about being tracked in the first place.
@mdmadph: Bad utility. Good idea, poor implementation.
Google blocks fast multiple searches … and it slows your machine down to a crawl. Useful only if you have a home network, and can dedicate one extra PC to only doing this.
A representative will be with you shortly.
You have been connected to TTM Mike .
TTM Mike : Hi this is Mike from Charter. How may I help you today?
Robert Hafner: I read an article online, and the followed it to the Charter webpage, which states that Charter is going to be monitoring my surfing habits and placing ads into pages I’m viewing. I am wondering how soon this will happen to me personally.
Robert Hafner: [connect.charter.com]
TTM Mike : I do apologize but let me transfer you over toour internet support line.
TTM Mike has left the session.
Please wait while we find an agent from the CHAT – DUMA – HSD Support department to assist you.
You have been connected to TTD Grah .
TTD Grah : Hi, this is Grah. Thank you for contacting Charter’s High Speed Internet support. How may I be of assistance to you today?
Robert Hafner: I read an article online, and the followed it to the Charter webpage, which states that Charter is going to be monitoring my surfing habits and placing ads into pages I’m viewing. I am wondering how soon this will happen to me personally.
TTD Grah : One moment please.
Robert Hafner: [connect.charter.com] Contains the information
Robert Hafner: that I am basing this question off of.
Robert Hafner: As well as [consumerist.com]
TTD Grah : Yes, that is our new update.
TTD Grah : One moment please as I download the document.
TTD Grah : Charter has formed a partnership with an industry-leader in online advertising, NebuAd (www.nebuad.com). NebuAd, through their advertising network, will display targeted advertisements to Charter High-Speed® Internet customers while they are surfing the Web. NebuAd does not collect and use personally identifiable information to deliver advertising. Customers will not see more ads – just ads that are more relevant to their interests that have been expressed through their web-surfing activity.
TTD Grah : The feature will be activated automatically for Charter HSI customers beginning in June 2008 in the following four Charter markets:
• Newtown, Connecticut
• Fort Worth, Texas
• San Luis Obispo, California
• Oxford, Massachusetts
Robert Hafner: So the ads are placed directly into websites I would normally view?
Robert Hafner: How do I opt-out for an entire household, with multiple computers and browsers?
Robert Hafner: Currently the only way to opt-out is by placing a cookie under each browser of each account of each computer, which is absolutely insane.
TTD Grah : The technology can actually often distinguish between different users on a shared computer and, therefore, can serve different ads to different users. Only a portion of the ads you see will be a function of the enhanced service – you will still see some ads that are served based on other criteria.
Robert Hafner: The question was were are those ads being placed- are they replacing other ads on websites, for instance?
Robert Hafner: And if so, how is the owner of the actual website going to be compensated?
TTD Grah : This site may appear depending on what are you trying to view online.
TTD Grah : This site will give you options on what to have according to what you need.
Robert Hafner: What site are you referring to?
TTD Grah : Say for example, you are surfing because you wish to purchase shoes online, this site will pop up and give you options to chose from.
TTD Grah : That is how it works.
TTD Grah : That is how it works.
TTD Grah : The site will not pop up everytime you go online.
Robert Hafner: So this only affects my traffic to the charter search site?
Robert Hafner: And it gives pop up ads?
TTD Grah : Yes.
Robert Hafner: So it won’t affect any other site I go to?
TTD Grah : Yes, that is correct.
Robert Hafner: So what is this tracking that it does? I’m aware that its deep-packet tracking, which means its monitoring everything I do, not just what I search for, so how can I disable that for my entire household?
TTD Grah : The ads you will see are standard ad types, such as banner ads and similar advertising formats, and are displayed only where you would typically expect to see them. You will not see any more ads now than you would otherwise see while on the Internet. They will not be any more intrusive or different from the standard ad formats you see across the Internet.
Robert Hafner: You just said they appear only on the Charter search website, and now you’re saying they replace other ads- which is it?
TTD Grah : It really depends on what you are surfing.
TTD Grah : As our valued customer, we want you to be in complete control of your online experience. If you wish to opt out of this service, you may do so at any time by visiting http://www.charter.com/onlineprivacy and following our easy to use opt out feature. To opt out, it is necessary to install a standard opt-out cookie on your computer. If you delete the opt out cookie, or if you change computers or web browsers, you will need to opt out again.
Robert Hafner: I want to opt-out my household- are you saying the only way to permanently opt-out my household is to cancel my service?
TTD Grah : No, you have the option to opt-out the new program. Just visit this site: http://www.charter.com/onlineprivacy and then follow the steps.
Robert Hafner: But then I have to opt-out each individual browser of each account of each computer, and then no one can delete their cookies which creates other security issues. I want a way to opt-out my house- is there a way, other than canceling my service, that I can do that with?
TTD Grah : I am sorry, that is the only way to opt-out your computer or browser from the program.
TTD Grah : That is the only suggested way of doing it.
Robert Hafner: Thank you for your time. I’m going to be posting this on my website and emailing my clients in the area (I am in the Massachusetts affected area, by the way) so others can see the problems with this and cancel as well.
TTD Grah : You’re welcome.
TTD Grah : I am sorrry, if this may cause you any incovenience.
TTD Grah : Have a wonderful day, sir!
TTD Grah : Thank you for choosing Charter Communications. Answers to frequently asked questions and self-help options can be found by looking in the “Customer Help” menu at http://www.charter.com. If you have further questions, please chat with us again. Our chat support is available from 7 AM through 1:30 AM central time, 365 days a year. Have a great day!
If you require further assistance, go to http://www.charter.com/contact
Your session has ended. You may now close this window.
When we moved to this address 3 years ago, Charter was the only option
for high speed internet, but when At&T came out here, we purposly chose
to stick with Charter because AT&T was spying.
The thing is we pay over $70 a month becuase they keep uping the
“speed” and the cost for it. Speed we don’t need and don’t use. At
this point we’ve decided why pay 3 times as much for the same level of
dis-service. We’ll be cancelig our cable too since we hardly ever
watch TV.
Thanks to their greedy ad grab we’ll be saving over $50 a month!!
This is what people get when they force down prices and you “get what you pay for” when companies look for other ways to make money.
Would people pay more for no target ad insertion internet service? signs tend to point to no.
If this actually survives the initial backlash and becomes a standard policy, I’m personally becoming a luddite because this is completely insane.
Learn from Phorm, people. It’s a bad idea, and not something any ISP wants to be involved with.
/no, you can’t sneak it in, either.
I’m lucky enough not to have had any problems with Charter; aside from the occasional outage due to weather. Sadly, I don’t know of anyone that *has* had a good experience with them (the service area is divided into East and West sections by the Mississippi and most of the folks I know live in the West section).
Though this change does not affect me now I will have to cancel and go to AT&T DSL (argh!) if Charter decides to go full throttle with this.
My hopes are with all of you in those 4 markets.
Dear Mr Stackhouse,
Your deliberate manipulation of my copyrighted webpage and advertisements for my own site are a violation of US Code 17 U.S.C. § 512 (a) (5).
Please remember to speak to your lawyers first.
Each time you manipulate my page in transit is a copyright violation.
Have a nice day. And by the way you can probably afford my lawyer.
Sincerely
valid902
? is do we all write letters, send emails, and make phone calls. consumers unite in protest. ok, you can take it from here
The first question is do they REALLY, and I mean REALLY have the technical means of doing this.
Datamining is hard, and I suspect the first problem charter will have is just trying to collect all that data is a usable form. I suspect this will be a customer service nightmare for them, since the performance of their system will be slow.
All this is going to do is force websites to become subscription only services. As a webmaster with over 20,000 web pages online, I say Fuck Charter and all the other assholes trying to profit from my hard work.
You think google is going to spend billions to create free maps, searches, and run youtube while fucktards like Charter ponyback off them for free, unlikely.
I have Charter and the first time I see them insert an ad on one of my websites, I’m blocking all traffic from them and switching ISP’s.
P.S. Fuck you Charter and kiss my ass