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Charter “enhances” Internet service with targeted ads

US cable operator Charter has rolled out a NebuAd-based "enhancement" to its …

It's shaping up to be deep packet inspection (DPI) week here at Ars as yet another controversial use for the technology surfaces at Charter Communications, a US cable operator. As reported last night by the Consumerist, Charter is testing a new DPI product that scans customers' online traffic to deduce their desires, then uses that information to show them highly-targeted ads. On an FAQ page about the new program, Charter refers to it as an "enhancement to your web browsing experience." Judging by the early responses online, we're not sure that most users will agree.

If you happen to be one of those users, Charter does provide a way to opt-out of the "enhancement," but it requires filling out a form and having a special cookie placed on your machine. Should you clear your cookies or switch browsers, you will get the "enhanced" service once again until you fill out the form a second time. If Charter seriously believes that this represents an enhancement to the user experience, it should make the program opt-in and watch as the users flood in, no?

When we asked the company about the decision to go opt-out, a spokeswoman told us that "we are highly sensitive to our customers' needs and concerns regarding privacy and this enhanced service was created with the privacy and protection of our customers in mind, and meets or exceeds industry standards regarding consumer information and privacy protection." Which is nice, but doesn't really answer the question. (The real answer, of course, is that opt-in signups would not be great enough to make the scheme worthwhile.)

  The company offers few details on how the system works, except to say that "it uses completely anonymous information and, based on your surfing and search activity on the Internet, it infers your interests in certain product or service categories, such as automobiles/sports cars, fashion/handbags, or travel/Europe, and so forth." Anonymous profiles are created for each user (and the program can even guess who is currently using a particular IP address based on their Web activity) and are used to serve up targeted ads, which is where the "enhancement" pitch fits in. You do like targeted ads, don't you?

The project is similar to what Phorm is doing in the UK, where the same type of "enhancement" has proved hugely controversial already. The Phorm system does appear to create anonymous profiles, and there's no reason to think that Charter's system will work much differently, but these profiles come at the cost of having your movements across the web watched by DPI gear.

Because such systems can actually peek inside packets, they can glean far more information than mere IP addresses. Having an IP address might tell the system what sites you visit on a regular basis, but for sites like Amazon.com, this is less than helpful. DPI gear can see exactly what pages on the site are being accessed, though, and it can scan those pages for keywords to use in building its profile. Charter provides little information about how much of this sort of thing its system does, but a company spokeswoman did confirm to Ars that NebuAd is the "technical partner" for the new service (which fits with what Karl over at DSL Reports suspected).

While the technology has the capability to replace existing advertising on websites, this isn't being done (for good reason; it would invite massive lawsuits). NebuAd relies on creating partnerships with publishers, then serving up targeted ads to their ad slots in real-time.

The system is only in the trial stages at this point. Charter tells us that trials are taking place in only three markets at the moment and says that "further deployment plans will be determined in the coming months."

Those plans could be determined at least in part from user reaction. The comments we have so far seen online suggest that the program isn't going down well with the geekerati, but Charter tells us that it conducted focus groups before launching the service and that it "was well received."

Channel Ars Technica