CDT Charges ISP Ad Scheme Might Be Illegal - Page 3

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Claims of privacy at risk

The CDT has no plans to file litigation against any of the ISPs currently using NebuAd's system. Instead, the group is trying to raise awareness that many of the existing structures of behavioral targeting -- which it has long argued put individuals' privacy at risk -- are now being applied to what it argues should be trusted communications providers.

"We are now seeing the migration of this model from individual portals and Web sites to ISPs, so I think it's important to understand that all of the concerns that we have in the online space are equal and amplified here," Harris said.

As severe as those concerns are to privacy advocates, Harris acknowledged the bare necessity of advertising to the way the Web works today.

"It's important to understand the fact that a lot of the content on the Internet is free to the consumer because it is supported by this advertising model," she said.

"But from the perspective of consumers, it's not transparent. Very few people understand the practice is occurring. To the extent that we have had a self-regulatory model intended to give consumers some choice over whether or not they wanted to participate in behavioral advertising, consumers are largely unaware of it," she said. "It is a very difficult system to navigate, and has been in our view largely a failure."