Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Charter Cable Becomes Big Brother

Looks like Charter Communications has decided that it can make more money by spying on its customers when they use the internet. Charter is going to record the web sites you visit and sell that information to advertising companies. Of course, they don't call it spying, they call it an "enhanced on-line experience".

I guess what makes it "enhanced" is that your loss of privacy enhances Charter's bottom line. Isn't the free market wonderful!

Might just be a good time to reconsider your choice of internet service providers if you're a Charter customer.

3 comments:

John445 said...

Russell, there is a page to opt-out and when I entered myp information received message back stating "enhanced on-line experience" is not available in my area and customers will be notified. You think opt-out really works?

John

Russell said...

Hi John,

Charter is testing this idea in a bunch of markets, but Madison isn't one of them. Yet.

There is an opt-out option, but it works by loading a cookie on your machine, so it's specific to each computer and each browser. And if you flush your cookies, as you should, you have to opt-out all over again.

Anonymous said...

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