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ISPs Tracking User Activity Much More Than Is Generally Known

Written by Evan Schuman
April 6th, 2008

ISPs have been quietly expanding their use of deep-packet inspection. They are capturing everything a user does–to the point where “at least 100,000 U.S. customers are tracked this way, and service providers have been testing it with as many as 10 percent of U.S. customers, according to tech companies involved in the data collection,” said a new report in The Washington Post.

The service providers exploring and testing such services have largely kept quiet–“for fear of customer revolt,” according to one executive involved who was quoted in the Post story. Each company allows users to opt out of the monitoring, though that permission is buried in customer service documents.

Posted in CRM, E-Commerce, Security/Fraud, Software
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