Quote:
Originally Posted by ceedee
Maybe I've misunderstood the basics of how Hitwise operates?
The difference that I'd consider makes Hitwise less dangerous than Phorm is that they only receive amalgamated data from the ISPs (rather than 'personalised and maybe anonymous' data for Phorm) and, for their saleable statistics, they're only interested in very large datasets.
I've no objection to, say, Amazon knowing that 10% of all VM users visited a bbc.co.uk webpage every day. Or that only 0.0001% (me) reads my blog every week...
I'd put that on about the same level as Google knowing almost every move I make!
Go on, burst my security bubble?
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Quote:
http://www.hitwise.com/who-we-are/co...fact-sheet.php
"Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users."
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Keywords hilighted above. Were the users on those ISPs informed that their online usage and searches were being sold to a marketing company? Did they have the option to opt-out?
Why I think the collecting of a URL clickstream is just as bad as Phorm DPI full page scanning:
Your ISP, like your telephone provider, is supposed to just be a conduit for the conversation, it isn't entitled to listen in and profit directly on your conversation (there is an exception, that an ISP may listen in for the express purpose of network routing for such purposes as managing high bandwidth data (e.g. streaming of films) that would otherwise impact low bandwidth activities (e.g. collecting email).
A search based clickstream consists of two parts, the telephone number and the question that you are asking. Let's look at an example for a well known book seller,
The first part of the URL,
http://www.amazon.co.uk is the equivalent of a telephone number. If you look up the name of a book shop in your local town in the telephone directory, you'll hopefully find the telephone number. The equivalent online is performed automatically by the web browser, it asks a DNS (a sort of IP address "telephone" directory) for the IP address for Amazon.
The question that I want to ask my local book shop is do you have products with Bewitched in the title? Online I would enter my question, the search term "Bewitched" into a box on the web page, but when you press <Enter> or click "Go!", your search term is converted into part of a URL
s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/202-2376015-4728622?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Bewitched&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go. In my opinion, the ISP has no right to record, use or directly profit from my question.
The equivalent for a telephone, would be if my local telephone exchange was being wire-tapped, and a marketing company was listening in on my conversation with my local book shop, recording or using that conversation would be illegal in the UK.