IN THE early days of the internet, the companies that provided people with access – the internet service providers, or ISPs – acted much like a postal service or telephone company. They provided the communication infrastructure, but what you did with it remained your business. We like to think they still act that way, but lately the reality has changed. Some ISPs have started gathering data about their customers’ browsing patterns – the kind of websites they visit – and selling it to advertisers who then use it to decide which ads particular users get to see (see “Gathering privacy storm as ISPs sell web clicks to advertisers”).
That may well come as a surprise, as ISPs have not exactly trumpeted their change of role. They would be well advised to tread warily, however, for whenever consumers have found out that their internet activities are being monitored or manipulated without their say-so, they haven’t liked it.
Phorm, one of a number of companies that buy access to ISPs’ data and analyse it on behalf of advertisers, caused consternation earlier this year when it revealed it had signed a deal with three major ISPs in the UK and had carried out a data-tracking trial on BT customers without their knowledge. It might have predicted that reaction. Late last year thousands of Facebook members complained when they discovered that the social networking site was broadcasting information about the goods they buy on other websites to their Facebook friends. The site was forced to climb down and offer members more control over how the information is used.
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The fear is that such incidents are the first steps down a road that could lead to not only advertisers but also governments and police forces having easy access to people’s private data. ISPs sit at the centre of this storm, for they have access to a data goldmine. Can we trust them to tell us what they are doing with it? Are we sleepwalking our way into a situation where information on every online action will be available to the highest bidder – or any unscrupulous government that wants it?
We are still a long way from that. What we have seen so far is not a wholesale surrendering of rights but a creeping extension of the role of ISPs. But taken to its logical conclusion, what started as a virtual postal service could become the equivalent to the postal service opening all our mail, photocopying the contents and selling them off. ISPs are interfering in other ways too. Comcast is by the US Federal Communications Commission because of its decision to delay data being passed around some file-sharing networks, to preserve bandwidth for other users.
It is important that all of us understand these changes of role. It is even more important that we have a debate about whether it is acceptable, and what the limits should be, before it’s too late.
