AT&T TELLS HILL PANEL ITS PRIVACY TARGET SHOULD BE GOOGLE, NOT ISPS

摘要

AT&T told the House Commerce Committee that it's wrongly concentrating on Internet service providers in its examination of behavioral targeting. A few ISPs already have revealed in letters either their surreptitious targeting or details of known targeting tests. AT&T said in a letter that it hasn't tested targeting but is "evaluating the applicable legal framework." Advertising networks like Google, on the other hand, "have evolved beyond merely tracking consumer web surfing activity on sites for which they have a direct ad-serving relationship," AT&T said. "They now have the ability to observe a user's entire web browsing experience at a granular level, including all URLs visited, all searches, and actual page-views." nnThat includes "automatically downloading applications that ? unknown to the consumer -?log the consumer's full session of browsing activity." Google in particular "can even correlate search activities across multiple sessions," the letter said. The "largely invisible practices of ad-networks raise even greater privacy concerns" than ISPs' targeting through deep- packet inspection, which has "primary application beyond mere targeting," such as managing congestion and fighting child pornography, AT&T said. If the telco uses targeting, it will "give customers control over the use of their information," ensure transparency, protect consumers' privacy and "give customers value," the company said.