Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 8, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Internet providers in the USA are said to have logged and analysed the browsing behaviour of at least 100,000 citizens. As the Washington Post reports, specially developed advertising-monitoring software was used, spying on users’ entire online behaviour and creating detailed profiles from the information obtained. In addition to the websites visited, this also affects sent emails and users’ individual search queries. The data collected in this way can then be sold to advertising partners so that they can tailor their advertising messages precisely to users and their respective interests. Following the revelation of the Internet spying operation, fierce criticism of the practices used is now mounting. Privacy advocates are calling for improvements to data protection rules, greater education of users about digital snooping and a general ban on tapping Internet traffic.
Such an approach is unacceptable, US privacy advocates criticise. Above all, the fact that systematic data collection takes place without users’ express consent and knowledge is extremely troubling. Tim Berners-Lee, a leading thinker behind the World Wide Web, sees the future of the Internet in danger in view of such developments. “Such data could be misused at any time,” he states. For example, he has no desire for his health insurer to know which subjects he has researched online. “We are aware of such practices, but have not yet dealt with a specific case,” explains Rainer Hämmer, Deputy State Commissioner for Data Protection in Lower Saxony, in response to an enquiry from pressetext.de. In this context, it is important to know that each German federal state has its own state authority responsible for data protection matters. “In any case, nobody affected has approached us yet,” Hämmer says.
The method known as “Deep Packet” inspection was used in the surveillance cases concerned in the USA. All activities a user carries out online are divided into data packets and analysed individually. The analysis results are then assigned to the respective users and a corresponding interest profile is created. The method used is also the argument Internet providers deploy in their favour to reject the privacy advocates’ accusation. The providers say that the in-depth analysis does not collect any data that could be used to identify individual users personally. Rather, the process used is extremely secure and anonymous. “On data protection, we comply with the legislation applicable in Germany. Among other things, this means that, as a matter of principle, we do not store customers’ usage data and have no plans to do so in future,” Sonja Schaub, spokeswoman for German Internet provider Hansenet http://www.hansenet.de , stresses to pressetext.
Almost a month ago, an initial test of a similar advertising software system called “Phorm” had already caused a stir in the United Kingdom. According to a report in the Daily Mail newspaper, British Internet provider British Telecom announced that it had already spied on the online behaviour of 36,000 customers.
