p2pnet - rss feed: Nexicom and NebuAd
p2pnet news | Advertising:- They’re getting desperate.
The cable and phone companies, that is.
They need to somehow tunnel into your wallets and they figure getting hold of your personal and private data will help them.
Or as the Wall Street Journal puts it, they believe their growth, “increasingly depends on being able to deliver targeted advertising to their Internet and TV customers, but criticism from privacy advocates is threatening that strategy.”
It goes on:
“In the past few weeks, phone operator CenturyTel Inc. and cable provider Charter Communications Inc. shelved plans to use ad-targeting technology from Silicon Valley start-up NebuAd due to privacy concerns raised by their customers and lawmakers.
“Last week, another cable company, Denver-based Wide Open West, pulled the plug on NebuAd’s software ….”
Nor is it alone.
“Here is a news tip for you,” said a p2pnet Reader’s Write —- “Ontario ISP, Nexicom caught red handed trying to sell off its users private data.”
It was referring to Robb Topolski’s item in dslreports on July 3, which said:
“DSLReport users, I have to sadly report that Nexicom is selling everything you see and do on the Internet to NebuAd,” wondering, “Were you informed of this?”
Nexicom is an Ontario ISP and our email asking company senior network admin Paul Stewart for his thoughts hasn’t yet been answered.
Says the dslreports item, quoting a Nexicom Privacy Policy, retrieved on July 2 >>>
“Beginning April 23rd, we will partner with a third party to deliver or facilitate delivery of advertisements to our users while they are surfing on the web. These advertisements will be based on those users’ anonymous surfing behaviour while they are online. This anonymous information will not include those users’ name, email address, telephone number, or any other personally identifiable information. By opting out you will continue to receive advertisements as normal; except these advertisements will be less relevent and less useful to you. If you would like to opt out, click here. (links to »www.nebuad.com/privacy/optout.php page)”.
But, “The software was never implemented” because of, “concerns on several levels regarding privacy issues,” says the p2pnet comment mentioned earlier, adding:
“References to NebuAd in Nexicom’s Privacy Policy have been removed.”
NebuAd says it’s, “transforming the online advertising industry with the first consumer-centric behavioral targeting network,” p2pnet posted recently, adding”.
“Through ‘unique technology’ and, ‘ISP partnerships,’ it, ‘combines web-wide consumer visibility with micro-targeted ads delivered at the right time in the buying cycle,’ it says, going on:
” ‘This network-level approach enables behavioral targeting to finally attain its true promise of a greater scale of impressions, and greater relevance to drive increased revenue per impression’.”
=================
UPDATE >
We’ve now had an email from Stewart stating:
“As per our posting on dslreports.com we had been looking at deploying the Nebuad system. We would like to make it clear however that it was never deployed. Our privacy policy was updated to reflect a future deployment date. Due to privacy concerns around the technology and industry feedback, we felt it was best to not deploy.
“We unfortunately did not update our privacy policy to reflect this.
“We are at present monitoring the results of US Congress hearings and Canadian Privacy Office determinations. ”
.
.Stumble It!
Wall Street Journal - Targeted Ads Raise Privacy Concerns , July 7, 2008
dslreports - Nexicom is using NebuAd, July 3, 2008
p2pnet - Consumer-centric behavioral targeting, June 26, 2008
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:12 am
thats just amazing
I can’t help but shake my head.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:56 am
What you see is give me more money. What you don’t see, despite of the words implying such, is actual improvements to benefit your connection. It will take threatening that money pipeline flow to force improvement.
Already you are seeing the row with BellCanada and throttling as a means to manage what is there and not actually improve the hardware for the net. The idea that they have to manage the connection, is a sign they have far over sold their resources. Resources that appear to be more than adequate at the upper levels but not at the last mile where the bottleneck is. The throttling has not improved that bottleneck nor will it ever; it actually contributes to even more congestion.
The real problem is that there is no competition for these telecoms to force them to spend the money to upgrade. Nor is there a clear direction in the form of government intervention that directs these telecoms to improve their services. Make no mistake one should be in place because it is the government that granted them the monopoly in the first place. Because of that grant, the government not only has the right, it has the responsibility to see to it that the monopoly meets the requirements of it’s citizens.
All this fancy dancing around the problem is the telecoms ways of saying feed us more money. The advertisers are throwing money at the telecoms to get a foot in the door. Money the telecoms will gladly take if they can just make it compatible to their users. One of the big problems with this is that NebuAd/Pharm is a tainted company, owned by the same parent company, that used to serve up malware and spyware. They have not changed their spots. They have changed which side of the mouth they speak out of. It is that serving up of malware/spyware that has allowed them the technology to be so intrusive.
The telecoms are being greedy and doing their best to manage the net under the aspect of a scarcity model, applicable to a physical world but not a digital one. It has become apparent to the thinkers of the population it isn’t working and soon that will pass down to us less cerebral members exactly what is wrong with this model. It is forums such as this all along the internet that is spreading this word. You aren’t seeing it in lamescream media where their model is the same.
July 13th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
How will any DPI ISP interception system ever be able to comply with the myriad of different Website conditions & “Copyright” issues?
Something that seems to have been forgotten here is that “every user” is supposed to have full “Absolute Copyright” over the use of their own data. (that does not include the ISP).
The interaction is always a personal one between the User & the Website, & eavesdropping in “any” form has always been frowned on for very good reasons!
The only case for temporarily overriding these basic principles is for possible National Security reasons or to monitor illegal activities when properly warranted!