Privacy
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Cable and phone companies say 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. 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, which it had used since March to track its customers on the Web and subdivide them by their ...
Targeted Ads Raise Privacy Concerns - WSJ.com
Monitoring customers' Web browsing to serve up targeted advertisements is coming under increased political scrutiny on privacy grounds, making the future of the controversial technique among Internet service providers less than certain. A hearing convened by a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday is the latest potential obstacle to widespread adoption of the practice, which relies on intercepting customers' Internet packets and building anonymized profiles that can be used for topic-based advertisements. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., suggested that the procedure amounts to "wiretapping" and promised a followup hearing in the near future to explore the subject further. "We need to take a closer look at Internet users' privacy," he said.
Senate questions privacy impact of Web monitoring for ads | The
Facebook now has more traffic than any other site in the US. More than even Google. So while we're sharing and connecting, it's hard not to think about whether all the information we enter there - and on all other social networks - will ever be private again. We've assembled a diverse and wide-ranging panel to discuss just that. From search engines, to health care, the question of privacy and access cannot be avoided.