Charter Officially Speaks on NebuAd

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May 14, 2008

Charter Officially Speaks on NebuAd

Saul Hansell at the NYT’s Bits Blog took some time yesterday to call Charter and ask for some comment on its partnership with NebuAd (noted here yesterday).

“I suggested to Mr. Schremp that there are likely to be a fair number of customers who don’t consider having their Internet activities tracked to be an enhancement.

“He responded several ways. He said that Charter convened focus groups of customers in two cities and found that most didn’t object when the program was explained to them. (A key aspect of the NebuAd system is that it claims not to record any personally identifiable information about users. Rather, it associates each user’s behavior with 1,000 categories of interest to advertisers.)

“He offered his personal view that the system is harmless and well within the norms of the Internet these days. ‘The mainstream Internet user is hugely aware of the fact that the fundamental economic model on the Internet is advertising,’ he said. While some people object to targeted advertising systems like Google’s Gmail, which displays ads related to the text of e-mail users are reading, many others don’t.”

“For those customers who disagree, Mr. Schremp said that Charter is offering the ability for them to choose not to be part of the system. I suggested that most privacy experts prefer opt-in systems where information isn’t collected until the user explicitly grants permission. He said that opt-out has become the norm for all targeting on the Internet.”

(Link)