A discussion about the Telecommunication Industry

Charter Communications, the 4^th largest cable operator, has starting tracking user’s web activity in order to push targeted ads to its subscribers.  Charter Communications has 2.8 million Internet subscribers.  Charter will sell the data it collects to a company called NebuAd which will then serve up the advertisements. 

This new policy has raised the ire of privacy advocates.  Charter does allow subscribers to opt out of the program, but most privacy advocates would like to see the program as opt-in.

Charter is going through the effort of notifying its customers of the new tracking program via mail.  Charter claims that many customers do not mind having the surfing habits monitored and would prefer to see ads that are more targeted to them rather then the hodge-podge of ads that blanket the Internet now.