[NANOG] Charter Communications going to sniff traffic for advertising?

Wed May 14 22:30:42 UTC 2008

> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20461817-HSI-Charter-to-monitor-surfing-insert-its-own-targeted-ads
> 

This is definitely taking the position that its "their" pipe and not the 
*Internet*. I can only imagine the issues that will get wrangled around 
in the courts over this. (ahem, Google, ahem).

This is not fundamentally different than a TV station digitally 
inserting their own ads on the stadium instead of whatever is there you 
might see in person. This *seems* like a problem because most people 
only have 1 connectivity provider at a time and often few options around it.

Regulation could address this, a differentiated service could address 
this, but this smacks of paying for a service to then get additional ads 
sent to you. (like everytime you dialed a number into your Skype for 
Pizza Delivery, they sent you to their paid-Pizza Delivery provider 
instead).

Depending on how invasive (or effective) this gets, it has wild 
common-carrier implications.

Deepak Jain
AiNET