This looks like the new "Phorm" style scandal folks where an ISP peeks through all your traffic to dump ads on you at your expense.
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9945903-38.htmTwo prominent members of the U.S. Congress are asking Charter Communications to hold off on its plan to monitor its customers' Web browsing and deliver relevant advertisements.
In a letter to Charter chief executive Neil Smit, Reps. Ed Markey and Joe Barton say the monitoring plan may violate federal privacy laws and ask that the company "not move forward" until "we have an opportunity to discuss" it. Markey is the Democratic chairman of a House Internet subcommittee and Barton is the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce committee.
Charter did not immediately respond on Friday to our questions about whether it would delay its monitoring-and-advertising plans as a result of the letter. Although Markey and Barton have no legal authority to order a halt, they could make life difficult for Charter by convening hearings and lambasting the company for alleged privacy violations.
federal law, 47 USC 551, says: "A cable operator shall not use the cable system to collect personally identifiable information concerning any subscriber without the prior written or electronic consent of the subscriber concerned."
Its pleasant to see some congressmen standing up for the rule of law, what these ISP companies are fast forgetting is that we all pay for our service and I'm sure many of you wont want to be wasting your bandwidth on downloading your ISP,s web advertising, especially as they plan to scan your browsing habits to decide what ads to send you. This is a plain abuse of their virtual monopoly.
