Consumerist
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 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)
Comments
I predict that more ISPs will pick up on this idea, and more customers will simply bend over and grip their ankles instead of doing the right thing and protesting their lungs out.
This will give birth to an era in which all Internet traffic will be encrypted.
Wow, is Charter centered in China?
A very thoughtful letter which has been sent to someone who surely has no idea what the customer is talking about.
Further, one can assume that since Charter executives approved this plan, they also had ill-considered the implications and impact on its customers.
Finally, somewhere within Charter there surely was an engineer who dutifully communicated the many problems with the plan, only to be completely ignored.
Does that sound about right?
Why does marketing have to be so invasive?? Surely there were many businesses who successfully sold products and services before the Internet every existed.
Is it really necessary to track our every move?
Aren't customers are paying already?
WTF? Unless Charter provides FREE internet, since they are making profits on advertisement, I say it's good reason to get out of their ''service'' right away!
I'm a Charter customer and I do NOT have good feelings about this. I agree, I pay a decent amount for this service, and the company should not be selling ads based on my personal information and otherwise monitoring my activity just to make even more money. Especially not without a secure opt-out method.
Oh, and last week I got a call from the Charter cable people, saying that my price would go up ten dollars unless I agreed to a free trial period of premium movies channels, which they would later charge me for. What?! I didn't really even understand the CSR, who then hung up on me. Great. Guess I'll just watch my next bill.
Keep this in mind:
They will have to use specific methods to "inject" advertisements into the HTML of the websites you visit.
There will be methods to circumvent this in no time. In fact, one additional filter to Ad Block Plus would do it.
I hope this leads to legislation restricting ISPs from intercepting, documenting, or viewing unicast packetflow between and host and server... pitty I know that would never happen =/
One day in the near future google will offer their search services over SSL.
Can ya say Ad-Muncher?
[www.admuncher.com]
There is a free version.
But I liked the product so much that I actually became a paying user.
Works very well. Sorry MSNBC, your ad laden news pages are suddenly ad free.
Charter is the scum of the earth. For years their service was so lousy that all the broadcast channels had static. I finally left them when I was suddenly disconnected for no reason. When I called them up they explained that one of my neighbors had moved and the service person had disconnected my house by mistake. So I asked them to send somebody up to reconnect me. They told me I had to make an appointment and that it would take 7 to 10 business days.
If I had Charter, I would start using FreeDNS, PublicDNS or OpenDNS.
Marketing is becoming increasingly invasive. The next logical step is for service providers to mandate marketing messages being lasered onto the inside of our eyelids.
I understand the importance of marketing and the vital function it serves. I really do. But it bothers me to no end that companies are taking to the idea that their marketing messages must be forced upon us in any way possible. No longer can you elect to not view advertising media. Unless you're living in a cave, on Mars, with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears, you are going to be subjected to an unending barrage of advertising and there's really not anything you can do about it. That in itself isn't too bad, but the increasing invasiveness being adopted for marketing messages is going past the line.
The Anti-Spyware Coalition is looking at this: [www.antispywarecoalition.org]
Does this clear the path for telco's to tap phone lines in order to insert targeted ads enhancing the phone call experience?
Charter has been doing this for awhile at least here in California.
@27spots: If the phone company cannot listen in on our phone conversations why do ISPs get to listen in on our internet activity?
Seriously, what's the difference between tapping the internet and tapping phones? Both provide service and access, yet one is illegal and one isn't. I don't get it.
"The most pressing privacy issue with this opt-out method is that the opt-out form presented at the aforementioned URL is not encrypted."
Yikes. Glad I don't associate with that clown outfit anymore.
What's new? The ISPs are now compelled to show us more ads online too? Looks like Charter wants to start a bad precedent now.
My own ISP, Verizon has implemented a custom, ad-filled 404 landing page not too long ago. 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. Bleh!
I have Charter and I just entered an invalid URL. Instead of a "server not found browser page" I got a helpful Charter "didn't find what you were looking for, so here's some links" page.
@Victo: So where's the DSL I can get without having to get a landline? I don't want a landline. Who else can I get cable service from? Nobody.
This practice is no different then the old and common practice of phone companies listening to our conversations and playing ads over the phone based on what we say.
Oh wait...that never happened.
@Victo: Here, here!! (or is it hear, hear?) -- if I'm goin to take it up the ass, I'm sure as hell not going to pay for it!
+ Watch video
(Seriously.)
This 'opt out' crap is an bigger than a mountain of crap.Let's see,we're going to monitor your activity/invade your privacy AUTOMATICALLY so if you happen to OBJECT or read or notice every little thing we send you we will give you the OPTION,the oppurtunity to object and/or keep your privacy.We will make it a hassle,a pain:an arduous task/routine for you to keep your privacy on your PAID service with Charter.
This almost sounds like they're switching you to a proxy server because that what's you have to do before you surf with one-adjust settings.And they can be a pain.
If marketing gets too invasive, some people go elsewhere.
@Corporate-Shill: A properly configured Firefox browser does the same thing.
I can live without the internet. I won't be held hostage to a marketer's wet dream.
Dear Charter:
Thanks for making me glad I have Comcast. I didn't think anyone could do that!
Sincerely,
Someone who will NEVER be your customer.*
*I pay for Internet Access. Not Internet monitoring, internet babysitting, or Internet interference.
@azntg: I have Verizon and the first time I noticed the same thing, I was outraged.
These are the instructions from stopping that behavior. Essentially, you have to go into your router and set up static DNS servers that change the last two numbers from 12 to 14 to get the old behavior back.
Yet another example of an opt out that puts undue burdens on the consumer.
It's all fun and games until someone files wire fraud charges.
Oh and what happened to the "common carrier" theory of copyright noninvolvement?
God dammit...and here I was being all smug I didn't have Adelphia...
Damn, they suck.
Sounds just like Phorm. Check it out on theregister.co.uk which has been fighting the good fight against such intrusion in the UK.
Sorry, but WHY THE HELL should I have to view advertising on a connection I already pay $30/month for? I pay $9 a month for HBO, and the only ads I see are for other shows on HBO.
@Hanke: Just a profit grab. This way they make money off you TWICE, instead of just once.
This is corporate america we're talking about here, they'll bleed you out of every last penny in your wallet given the chance.
There's some evidence that other ISP's are already doing this.
Ars
Slashdot
@Die_Fledermaus: There's a debate in the DSL forum about whether it's Phorm or NebuAD.
@Commenters talking about ad block plugins: Agreed. I love Ad Block Plus, but to my knowledge (and I haven't explored this), ABP blocks ads, targeted and untargeted; it doesn't block the ISPs' snooping, right?
@Buran: Dry (or sometimes called naked) DSL. IIRC most phone companies offer it. It's usually $5 more than the standard DSL packages. I'd even get a landline to get DSL if my cable company tried pulling this crap. (The cable co. is Comcast. But I use Qwest for Internet and DirecTV for TV.)
Verizon FIOS is now redirecting traffic to their own search engines for URLs without a suffix.
It used to be the fact you can simply type consumerist without the .com to get that web address. Now they funnel all traffic to their proprietary search engine. Grrrrrrrr.
@azntg: Verizon also provides a non-404 redirecting dsl dns. (I switched within 2 days of Verizon starting this in Jersey)
[netservices.verizon.net]
@ironchef: Also, non-redirecting verizon fios dns
[log.psi.cc]
[netservices.verizon.net]
I hate it when a company rolls out something consumers will hate and calls it an "upgrade" or an "enhancement." Um, none of your customers ACTUALLY like it. Especially when it's so hard to opt out, as this seems to be.
I have Time Warner...so far so good, and nothing like this or Comcast's throttling, but who knows what lies in the future?
@AstroPig7: Roger's Internet here in Canada experimented with it a number of months ago. (They SAID is was so they could insert "you're close to your download limit" warnings into web pages but we all know that ads were next.)
Canadian cyberspace went NUTS and they backed down immediately. They haven't mentioned it since but that means nothing, really.
My response would be "that's why Zod made Greasemonkey!" I've removed ads and reworked every page I visit on a regular basis, what's suppressing a few more ads?
Wow, sounds like it's time to jump to a different ISP.
Here's the thought process:
1. Implement these ads
2. Lose 1% of customers because they're pissed off
3. Increase revenue by 2% by selling ads to the other customers
4. Increase profit
I have Charter and they've really shot themselves in the foot on this one. Because their internet service is cheaper to get in most of their locations if you also buy basic cable TV, people bailing out of internet over this will also drop the cable TV at the same time and go with satellite and/or antenna if they're able to. That's my plan. I've had DSL in the house for a couple of months alongside Charter internet, and so far the DSL is good enough for my purposes.
This has smarmy marketing exec written all over it.
Knology did this in the last month but you can fully opt out if you filled out the form and mailed it back. Of course the form was sent in what looked like more marketing crap so I bet half the people tossed it in the trash without opening it.
This is just more reason that state PUC's need to regulate cable and cellular just like they do everything else.
The other thing about this is that the letter states: "You will not see more ads - just ads that are more relevant to you."
If that's true, this means one of two things:
1. They're putting their ads up in place of another advertiser's ads. That alone will cause them a whole lot of grief if the other advertisers find out that their ads are being replaced by the ones Charter serves up.
2. They're only doing this on Charter-branded web pages, such as charter.net, their own Yahoo-style web portal for clueless subscribers who let Charter set that as their homepage. In that case, Charter sells the ad space anyway so no one other than the subscriber who's offended by the practice is affected. Charter recently forced their subscribers to only be able to access their webmail via this page full of news and ads, but there are even workarounds to that. :-)
The world is going to hell. If a communications popped up (Internet, cell phone, cable TV) that provided decent service and treated its customers like human beings, there would be a mass-migration to them.
@crappedcrusader: They've been doing that for a long time to me. :/
The odd thing is that a lot of those pages I KNOW aren't bad links, so I'm really not sure why sometimes they work, and sometimes I get that landing page.