Of course, just 'cuz they say they're stopping their illicit activities doesn't mean that they're actually doing so...
Posted on 02/13/2002 10:28:28 AM PST by RCW2001
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:39:36 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Comcast Corp., the nation's third-largest cable company, pledged Wednesday to immediately stop recording the Web browsing activities of each of its 1 million high-speed Internet subscribers.
Comcast said in a statement that it will stop storing the information "in order to completely reassure our customers that the privacy of their information is secure." The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the company had started recording each customer's visit to a Web page as part of a technology overhaul to save money and speed up the network.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Wow! It's been a long time since I've been thankful to a Democrat for anything!
To know how someone spends their time online is to peek into their very mind. Its nobody's business but mine.
Of course, just 'cuz they say they're stopping their illicit activities doesn't mean that they're actually doing so...
You have no privacy on the internet unless you make it a point to protect yourself (with encryption, secure sockets, etc.) Even then, you have very little privacy.
The question has not percolated among federal appellate courts whether one has a reasonable expectation of privacy in internet communication, and the Supreme Court therefore has not yet addressed it. My money is on a ruling that the Fourth Amendment simply doesn't apply.
Be careful. Comcast is the least of your worries.
Prefering a broadband connection to the internet, my options are cable, satellite, and DSL. My cable company is Com(mie)cast. My lease doesn't allow me to have a satellite antenna. That leaves DSL. Any recommendations on a DSL provider?
How To Tell If Your Used Computer Belonged To Somebody Famous:1. The hard drive contains billions and billions of astronomical images.
2. Spell checker reports "strategery" and "misunderestimate" as valid words.
3. Password is "Death To American Infidels"
4. System monitor software has rapidly-increasing entries for "Copies of Windows Sold" and "My Net Worth".
5. You surf to a porn site and are greeted with the message, "Welcome Back, Mr. President"!
Imagine the fishing expeditions that will happen to embarrass someone over the web hits they have made......politicians, divorce cases. Lots of possibilities.
The ultimate nightmare would be for someone to set up a website where you could search for someone elses web hits without a subpena.
With due respect, I recieved (via e-mail) this from my friend at Comcast before 1:00pm Eastern. Four hours is pretty good for a large company like Comcast...:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMCAST STATEMENT ON INTERNET PRIVACY
Philadelphia (February 13, 2002) – Comcast Cable Communications President Stephen B. Burke issued the following statement today regarding Internet privacy:
“Comcast respects the privacy of all our subscribers and is committed to fully protect their rights. Comcast has not shared and will not share personal information about where our subscribers go on the Web, either for any internal purpose or with any outside party, except as required by law. Consistent with our subscriber agreement and our privacy policy, which every subscriber acknowledges before receiving our service, Comcast reviews information in aggregate form only for purposes of network performance management to ensure an optimal Internet network experience for our subscribers.”
“Since we launched our own Internet network six weeks ago in the wake of Excite@Home's bankruptcy, IP and URL information has been stored temporarily. This information has never been connected to individual subscribers and has been purged automatically to protect subscriber privacy. Beginning immediately, we will stop storing this individual customer information in order to completely reassure our customers that the privacy of their information is secure.”
Comcast Corporation (www.comcast.com) is principally involved in the development, management and operation of broadband cable networks, and in the provision of electronic commerce and programming content. Comcast Cable is the third largest cable company in the United States serving more than 8.4 million cable subscribers. Comcast's commerce and content businesses include majority ownership of QVC, Comcast-Spectacor, Comcast SportsNet, The Golf Channel, Outdoor Life Network, a controlling interest in E! Networks, and other programming investments. Comcast's Class A Special and Class A Common Stock are traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbols CMCSK and CMCSA, respectively.
# # #
Then, every offhand comment, every "nuke the ragheads" sentiment, can and will be used against you. Along with anything that could be construed as insider information about your place of work, sexually harassing comments... you name it.
Actually no. The smart companies don't want any type of records on what their customers do online, simply because they don't want to be in the middle of any potential future lawsuits. Consider this senario.
Plaintif subpoenas records of ISP claiming that these records will prove allegations that Defendant was slandering Plaintif online.
If the ISP refuses Plaintifs request the ISP could be charged with contempt of court.
If the ISP complies with the court order, the ISP could be sued by Defendant for releasing private information damaging to Defendant.
But if the ISP has no records of Defendants online activity, WALLA, problem solved:)
Well worth the money.
Comcast promises not to track subscribers
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
The Register.com
Posted: 14/02/2002 at 10:20 GMT
A little brouhaha started last week with a post to the Vuln-Dev mailing list, in which a contributor called J. Edgar Hoover observed that Comcast's cable Internet service was using an Inktomi traffic server capable of recording the comings and goings of its subscribers.
Five days later the Associated Press' Ted Bridis got hold of the story and 'broke' it, without bothering to credit his source, apparently in hopes that the world would credit him with this amazing discovery.
There isn't actually a great deal to this story beyond speculation, or you'd have read it here back on the seventh, when J Edgar stepped forward.
The questionable equipment isn't necessarily a problem. ISPs and NSPs often use caching hardware to serve pages more quickly and balance traffic loads. Companies also gather aggregate data which they sell to the ever-inquisitive advertising industry.
The real question here would be 'what is Comcast doing with this information?' And of course our wire drone offers not one shred of evidence that it was being misused -- which would, of course, constitute a story.
The upshot of all this hack-fabricated 'controversy' is that Comcast has stated that it wasn't tracking users' surfing habits and wasn't selling user-specific marketing data. The company further issued a guarantee that they won't do any such thing in future.
"Comcast reassured customers Wednesday that the information had been stored only temporarily, was purged automatically every few days and 'has never been connected to individual subscribers,'" Bridis writes.
Meanwhile, on the illusory strength of Bridis' speculation-as-news, US Representative Edward Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts) got his privacy-advocacy knee a-jerking (not that it takes much to effect this phenomenon), and contacted Comcast warning them that they might or might not be in violation of federal law, depending on what they were or weren't doing with the data, which of course Bridis, you and I don't know, and now probably never will.
But if we look at the Comcast subscriber agreement, we get the feeling that they wouldn't dream of collecting user-specific data, unless they happen to feel like doing so.
"Comcast considers the personally-identifiable Customer information that is collected to be confidential. Comcast will disclose to third parties personal information that Comcast maintains related to Customers only when it is necessary to deliver the Service to customers or carry out related business activities, in the ordinary course of business, for ordinary business purposes, and at a frequency dictated by Comcast's particular business need, or pursuant to a court order or order of any regulatory body having jurisdiction over matters which are the subject of this Agreement."
Mostly that's a lot of idiotic legal boilerplate meant to discourage frivolous lawsuits. The fact is there are laws which make it a crime to intercept a person's communications without their knowledge and consent; and subscriber agreements aren't quite at the point where they absolve companies of responsibility for criminal activity.
Not yet, anyway. ®
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