NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: DPI Abuse: A rotten egg by any other name would smell as rotten
On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 2:59 PM, Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> wrote:
>
> Telephony Online: "DPI: A scorned technology that's thriving"
> (second of three parts):
> http://telephonyonline.com/iptv/news/dpi-scorned-but-thriving-0721/
>
> I might note that I'm getting very tired of attempts to equate
> voluntarily subscribed services like Google Gmail with intrusive
> "opt-out-only" (or maybe no opt-out at all) ISP DPI wiretapping
> operations.
>
> It's completely reasonable to choose/hire a service to read and
> otherwise help you manage your correspondence, electronic or
> physical. This is a purely opt-in choice.
>
> However, the existence of such possible arrangements does not
> somehow give permission for the postal service, phone companies, or
> ISPs to tap your Internet data stream looking for tidbits to
> monetize without your explicit, affirmative, opt-in permission.
Although I agree with you that DPI for advertisement purposes is pure
evil, you severely dismiss the privacy concerns that Google poses.
Its not Gmail, gmail is a consentual service.
It is the deep advertising, analytic, and hosting network that Google
has constructed that is the threat to user privacy, a threat nearly as
great as ISP-run DPI services. (You can even argue that the threat is
far greater. DPI gets smacked down when ISPs try it, but Google's
advertisement network is a fait accompli, especially after the
DoubleClick acquisition was approved).
Unless you explicitly use a no-add extension to your web browser,
every ad, analytic do-dad, and youtube bit embedded on a page gets the
full information on what you are reading (because of the referrer
field) and can identify you (based on IP and/or setting a cookie).
So for every such page, Google can know exactly what you are reading
and who you are, without having to wiretap a thing. You can go
everything through SSL and Google would STILL know it all.
Plus there is all the pages hosted by Google itself, which in itself
is a huge amount. This privacy footprint is a big deal. I don't see
where you consented to have Google monitor almost all your surfing
habits, and short of technical means, an opt-out button.
And Google has a huge privacy footprint. A huge fraction of the web
pages you visit every day have either an add supplied by doubleclick
(a google company), google adwords, or google analytics. Microsoft,
Yahoo, and AOL are a bit farther behind, but not that far back.
In fact, the only differences between what Google does in terms of
tracking a user's web surfing and what NebuAd and Phorm do is the
following:
1) Google doesn't track your porn surfing.
2) Google gets the consent of the CONTENT PROVIDER.
So yes, there is a very GOOD reason to equate what Google does and is
capable of doing with their advertisement, analytic, and hosting
network with what Phorm and NebuAd do. Because the goal is the same
(know everything about you to better target ads), and the technique is
the same (by creating a model based on all the stuff you read online).
They are just getting the information in a different way which
involves the consent of the content provider.
[ Without getting into the technical details of why I disagree
with Nick regarding his analysis above, I'll simply note for
the moment that -- given a choice -- I'll trust Google with
data that has been collected over trusting my telco or cable
company ISP with similar data any day. I base this both on
current behaviors and on my being something of a student of
telecom history -- much of that history being best described
as sordid.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]