Nortel Networks recently introduced its Personal Internet suite, a range of smart switches that monitors Web surfing habits. An Internet service provider (ISP) could use the suite to identify, for example, which banner ads most attract users and the language they like to read them in.
Nortel said the suite would revolutionise the delivery of content over the Web by making it faster, more personal and easier to use, but privacy advocates are concerned about the prospect of user profiles being passed on to marketing companies.
"It's not appropriate for telecoms carriers and ISPs to monitor where the subscribers are going," said Jason Catlett, president of privacy advocacy and consulting firm Junkbusters. "It's like the phone company monitoring your calls or doing marketing based on the phone numbers you call. That's illegal, but the law hasn't caught up with ISPs, so it's still legal to do that."
Nortel says it is giving service providers a technology that enables them to target advertising according to individual end user preferences. "Personal Internet identifies who the subscriber is and can hook them up with the content they want," said Selina Lo, vice president of marketing at Nortel's Content Networking business.
When a user requests a specific URL, Nortel's switches use that information in order to predict what might be requested next and to get ready to deliver it as quickly as possible. "We provide a way for users to identify their preferences through information that is embedded in the http request," Lo said. "We don't mess around with cookies, but our products can be configured to recognise cookies."
If a user goes to an international site, they will not have to select the English home page, for example, because the Nortel products have learned from the browser being used that English is the language of choice.
If someone is searching the Internet for a particular product or service, Nortel's personal Content Director takes note of the fact that the request came in English and from a handheld device. If the user temporarily logs off the Internet and comes back online, Personal Director knows they are searching in a certain area, and will not direct the user to a search engine that covers a range of other localities. "We're really just providing the means for users to get at their desired content more directly," Lo said.
Andrew Shen, policy analyst for the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said Nortel's products move information collection further into the infrastructure of the Internet. "Until now, cookie placement has been the province of Web sites," he said. "It's now moving into the realm in which Internet service providers have access to data on where the users are going. It allows ISPs to collect more information than ever before, and be more invisible to the user."
Personal Internet will give ISPs access to profiling information, Shen said. And it will provide ISPs with more control over how users get on the Internet and what they see there. "It's tailor-made for a company like AOL Time-Warner. AOL can send users to particular sites or make available certain content-based information or ads."
Though Shen sees this as a potential problem, many ISPs and corporate advertisers will interpret it as an advance they can exploit to gain a competitive advantage.
