Jump to content

NeBuAd still making criminal waves after it's demise.


zalternate

Recommended Posts

Remember NeBuAd? Most don't.

It was a company that sold itself to ISP's, so the ISP could make millions and billions in new ad revenues by mining the users Internet data stream. ISP's also hack the users DNS, to redirect non-existent web address queries to an ad laden Internet search portal, to be able to serve the user ad's based on the browsing habits.  Many ISP's still do DNS redirects which tend to break the Internet. Sometimes you get redirected to an ad laden page every 50th webpage clicks.

The users webpages were hacked to put in the ISP's ad's in place of the websites actual ad's.  Censorship? Why yes it is. How does the user even know that the webpage they are looking at is the actual webpage they wanted? And injected ad's have been found to sometimes contain malicious links.

Rogers Cable Internet in Canada still does this practice with whatever third party ad provider that still exists after the worlds Governments have become involved in killing the deceptive, illegal practices.  Why illegal? Well the users were not informed that all their Internet data was being mined(privacy and wiretapping laws). In real legal terms, you must 'Opt In" to have your data mined and not that oh so whissy washy "Opt Out" B.S. that sometimes does nothing to stop the crime.

If someone monitors your phone call, thats a crime.

If someone monitors your Internet data, thats big business.  

http://www.courthousenews.com/2009/12/11/Class_Alleges_Giant_Spyware_Scheme.htm

 (CN) - Internet service provider WideOpen West installed spyware on its broadband networks that "funneled all users' Internet communications - inbound and outbound, in their entirety - to a third-party Internet advertisement-serving company, NebuAd," a class action claims in Chicago Federal Court. "NebuAd and WOW used the intercepted communications to monitor and profile individual users, inject advertisements into the Web pages users visited, transmit code that caused undeletable tracking cookies to be installed on users' computers, and forge the 'return addresses' of user communications so their tampering would escape the detection of users' privacy and security controls," the class claims.

The only named defendant is WideOpen West Finance LLC (WOW). The class claims WOW gave NebuAd virtually unlimited access to the personal information of at least 330,000 people.

The information included credit reports, political affiliations, job searches and even movie rental choices. NebuAd paid WOW for each person they spied on, and used the information to deliver customized ads based on people's Internet search preferences, the class claims.

The class adds that WOW lied to Congress in August 2008 when it said that it had made an agreement with NebuAd, but that NebuAd had not use the information to get access to and use people's phone numbers and addresses.

WideOpen also lied to its customers by telling them that their personal information was safe, thank to a bogus "opt-out" policy, the class claims.

It claims WOW misinformed its customers: "please rest assured that WOW does not and will not share personally identifiable information with any advertiser," and told them that they would receive ads that would be less relevant to them if they opted out.

The class demands that WideOpen hand over all the money it received from NebuAd, for distribution to the class. It wants WideOpen ordered to delete all of their stored personal information, plus restitution and damages for invasion of privacy, unjust enrichment, eavesdropping and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The class is represented by Michael Aschenbrener with KamberEdelson.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...