Per an article in my local St. Louis paper today, Charter Communications, our local cable provider, has scrapped plans to monitor web usage of some of its high-speed internet users. Purportedly, Charter was going to monitor the web activities of users in four pilot areas in order to gather marketing data they could then use to target advertising to those users.
I, of course, find their claims of trying to target their marketing as dubious. It would become readily apparent to those monitoring their tracking system exactly who was using peer-to-peer services as well as opening the door to users’ private viewing habits online. There were no provisions in their new terms of service to protect this data from those who shouldn’t see it, and no clear definition of how they were going to use the information they gathered.
The plan drew criticism from some privacy advocates and from two members of Congress. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas both were in communication with Niel Smit, Charter’s President, and Charter had also drawn the attention of the Center for Digital Democracy. An outcry by not only users but legislators and the attorney general of Connecticut seemed to sway Charter away from this ill-conceived plan to snoop on users.
I am not a huge fan of Charter, in fact, I’m not a fan at all and have avoided having services with them for at least the last six years because of their horrible customer service, snooping on digital cable boxes, and predatory pricing practices. But in this case, I’m glad to see they did the right thing.
Charter Communications is the fourth largest cable provider in the United States.