It seems spying on your customers surfing habits is a dead duck in the water if the law is as clear as stated in this article.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/isp-content-f-1.htmlInternet service providers that monitor their networks for copyright infringement or bandwidth hogs may be committing felonies by breaking federal wiretapping laws, a panel said Thursday.
University of Colorado law professor Paul Ohm, a former federal computer crimes prosecutor, argues that ISPs such as Comcast, AT&T and Charter Communications that are or are contemplating ways to throttle bandwidth, police for copyright violations and serve targeted ads by examining their customers' Internet packets are putting themselves in criminal and civil jeopardy.
"These ISPs are getting close to the line of illegality and may be violating the law," Ohm told conference goers at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference Thursday.
Charter's proposed test of a system that eavesdrops on the URLs its customers visit, in order to serve them targeted ads, has already spurred a powerful Congressman to question whether the scheme would violate the Cable Act.
These schemes all seem to violate the Wiretap Act, a federal statute banning eavesdropping that comes with criminal and civil penalties. That law has some exceptions for service providers to monitor content, but only when necessary to deliver service, or to protect the company's "rights and property."
In fact, Ohm thinks network system administrators could themselves be in legal trouble, just for following orders from their bosses to install monitoring devices.
Whilst I would rather no one went to prison for this activity, but y if that's what is necessary to confirm to the corporate machine they have to abide by the law also, then so be it, the customers right to free and unmolested communications trumps making a fat profit by abusing a position of trust.
