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→‎NebuAd's ISP Partners: Removed BlackFoot as I now have information that their test was internal only.
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* [[Charter Communications]] suspended its plans<ref name="nytcharter">{{cite news | title=Charter Will Monitor Customers’ Web Surfing to Target Ads| url=http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/charter-will-monitor-customers-web-surfing-to-target-ads/index.html?ref=business| work=The New York Times| date= 2008/05/14 |accessdate=2008-05-14}}</ref> to test NebuAd following scrutiny from lawmakers and privacy groups<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Charter-User-Monitoring-Plans-Suspended-95551 |title=Charter User Monitoring Plans Suspended - 'Enhanced user experience' apparently not so enhanced.... |accessdate=2008-06-25 |last=Bode |first=Karl |date=2008-06-24 |work=BroadbandReports.com }}</ref>.
* [[Charter Communications]] suspended its plans<ref name="nytcharter">{{cite news | title=Charter Will Monitor Customers’ Web Surfing to Target Ads| url=http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/charter-will-monitor-customers-web-surfing-to-target-ads/index.html?ref=business| work=The New York Times| date= 2008/05/14 |accessdate=2008-05-14}}</ref> to test NebuAd following scrutiny from lawmakers and privacy groups<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Charter-User-Monitoring-Plans-Suspended-95551 |title=Charter User Monitoring Plans Suspended - 'Enhanced user experience' apparently not so enhanced.... |accessdate=2008-06-25 |last=Bode |first=Karl |date=2008-06-24 |work=BroadbandReports.com }}</ref>.
* An [[Embarq]]<ref name="nytcharter"/> spokesperson told the Associated Press that it ended its trial with NebuAd, and has not decided whether to move forward with Behavioral Targeting advertising "either through NebuAd or with any other vendor"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/scitech/2008/06/25/D91HAQHO1_tec_web_tracking/index.html |title=ISPs still considering tracking Web use |accessdate=2008-06-25 |work=Salon.com |date=2008-06-25 |last=Svensson |first=Peter }}</ref>.
* An [[Embarq]]<ref name="nytcharter"/> spokesperson told the Associated Press that it ended its trial with NebuAd, and has not decided whether to move forward with Behavioral Targeting advertising "either through NebuAd or with any other vendor"<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/scitech/2008/06/25/D91HAQHO1_tec_web_tracking/index.html |title=ISPs still considering tracking Web use |accessdate=2008-06-25 |work=Salon.com |date=2008-06-25 |last=Svensson |first=Peter }}</ref>.
* Blackfoot Telecommunications Group, Inc. of [[ Missoula%2C_Montana | Missoula, Montana ]] appears to have tried NebuAd between March and May of 2008<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20706000-Blackfoot-Telecommunications-Group-Inc-Missoula-MT-Nebuad |title=Blackfoot Telecommunications Group, Inc. Missoula MT Nebuad |accessdate=2008-06-26 |work=BroadbandReports.com |date=2008-06-26 }}</ref>.
* [[CenturyTel]], one of the earliest known ISPs to test NebuAd<ref name="WSJ">{{cite news | title=Watching What You See on the Web |url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119690164549315192.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_marketplace| work=The Wall Street Journal| date= 2007-12-06 |accessdate= 2008-05-21}}</ref>, notified customers in late May of 2008 that it was deploying the hardware<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20554465-Centurytel-and-NebuAd |title=CenturyTel and NebuAd |accessdate=2008-06-27 |work=BroadbandReports.com |date=2008-05-28 }}</ref>, only to pull out of the deal alongside of Charter a month later<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20711216-Centurytel-drops-NebuAd |title=CenturyTel Drops NebuAd |accessdate=2008-06-27 |work=BroadbandReports.com |date=2008-06-27 }}</ref>.
* [[CenturyTel]], one of the earliest known ISPs to test NebuAd<ref name="WSJ">{{cite news | title=Watching What You See on the Web |url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119690164549315192.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_marketplace| work=The Wall Street Journal| date= 2007-12-06 |accessdate= 2008-05-21}}</ref>, notified customers in late May of 2008 that it was deploying the hardware<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20554465-Centurytel-and-NebuAd |title=CenturyTel and NebuAd |accessdate=2008-06-27 |work=BroadbandReports.com |date=2008-05-28 }}</ref>, only to pull out of the deal alongside of Charter a month later<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r20711216-Centurytel-drops-NebuAd |title=CenturyTel Drops NebuAd |accessdate=2008-06-27 |work=BroadbandReports.com |date=2008-06-27 }}</ref>.


Revision as of 18:26, 30 June 2008

NebuAd, Inc
Company typePrivately held Company
IndustryOnline advertising
Founded2006
HeadquartersCalifornia, USA
Key people
Robert Dykes, Chairman, founder and Chief Executive Officer
Websitewww.NebuAd.com

NebuAd is an American online advertising company based in Redwood City, California, with offices in New York and London and is funded by the investment companies Sierra Ventures and Menlo Ventures[1]. It is one of several companies developing behavioral targeting advertising systems, seeking deals with ISPs to enable them to analyse customer's websurfing habits in order to provide them with more relevant, micro-targeted advertising. Others include Phorm and Front Porch.[2]. Adzilla and Project Rialto appear to be developing similar systems.[2]

NebuAd has signed up more than 30 customers, mostly Internet access providers[3], its agreements with providers covering 10 percent of the broadband users in America.[4]

Overview of the service

NebuAd's solution has three main parts: Hardware hosted within the ISP that is capable of inserting content into pages, an off-site server complex to analyze and categorize the contents of users' Internet communications, and relationships with advertising networks willing to present NebuAd's targeted advertising[5].

The System works by installing a hardware device inside an Internet Service Provider (ISP) network. Each device can monitor up to 50,000 users.[6] Users can opt-out, however the opt-out uses a cookie stored on the users computer, which will be lost if the user regularly deletes cookies from their computer.[7]

Because ISPs route all of their customers' traffic, it is a uniquely perfect vantage point from which to monitor all the traffic to and from a consumer using Deep packet inspection (DPI). By analyzing this traffic, NebuAd says it gains more information about customers' particular interests than less intrusive methods can provide. NebuAd's privacy policy says that they will "specifically not store or use any information relating to confidential medical information, racial or ethnic origins, religious beliefs, or sexuality which are tied to personally identifiable information ('sensitive personal information')."[8] It also advises, "The information we collect is stored and processed on NebuAd's servers in the United States. As a result, that information may be subject to access requests by governments, courts or law enforcement."

America's twelfth largest cable operator, WOW! (formally Wide Open West) started rolling out Nebuad in February 2008, the roll out was completed in the first week of March 2008. WOW updated its terms and conditions to include a mention of Nebuad,[9] and in some cases informed customers that the terms had been updated. Customers were not explicitly notified about NebuAd until later, sometime after the third week of March 2008[10].

At least two customers noticed that when they used Google, unexpected cookies for sites such as nebuad.adjuggler.com were being read and written, but when they contacted WOW's support department, they initially denied that the ISP was responsible for this activity.[10] One spent hours trying to disinfect his machine as he wrongly believed that it had been infected with spyware after noticing problems with Google loading slowly and the creation of these non-google cookies, eventually resorted to reinstalling his machine from scratch, only to discover the problem had not gone away.[10]

According to Nebuad's sales pitch less than 1% of users opt-out. One ISP expects to earn at least $2.50 per month for each user.[11]

Nebuad buy impressions from ad networks including Valueclick.[12]

NebuAd argues that behavioural targeting enriches the internet on several fronts. Firstly, website owners are offered an improved click-through rate (CTR), which could increase profits or reduce the amount of page-space dedicated to advertising. Owners of previously thought ad-unfriendly websites are offered a chance to make money not on the subject matter of their website but on the interests of their visitors.

Advertisers are offered better targeted adverts, hence reducing the "scattergun approach" (publish as many ads as possible in the hope of catching a client) and users are offered more relevant adverts: just because you visit the financial pages of a newspaper doesn't mean all you're interested in is financial product and books on investing!

ISPs get paid for allowing NebuAd access to their network on a per-user per-active profile basis.

Nebuad uses data such as Web search terms, page views, page and ad clicks, time spent on specific sites, zip code, browser info and connection speed to categorise its user's interests.[13] Bob Dykes, NebuAd CEO claims "We have 800 [consumer interest segments] today and we're expanding that to multiple thousands".[14]

Controversies

Generally, NebuAd provides an additional income stream to network operators, which may maintain or lower consumers' internet access bills. Better targeted advertising also leads to a more relevant and personalized online experience. Critics believe that the raw content of their internet communications are entrusted to the ISP for handling without being inspected or modified, not for sale[15]. Privacy advocates also criticize the lack of disclosure[16] that some ISPs provided prior to using NebuAd, a weak opt-out method[17], the lack of oversight over what any third-party company does with the contents of Internet communications[18], its conflicts with United States wiretap laws[11][17], and the company's refusal to name its partner ISPs.

Plans to implement NebuAd have not gone down well some ISP's employees, one even plans to re-route his traffic to avoid NebuAd's Deep Packet Inspection hardware.[11]

Members of US Congress, Ed Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and Joe Barton, a ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, have argued that such services must be opt-in only to comply with the provisions laid down by Section 631 of the US Communications Act, and have written to Charter requesting they suspend the test "We respectfully request that you do not move forward on Charter Communications' proposed venture with NebuAd until we have an opportunity to discuss with you issues raised by this proposed venture".[19]

A writer for Wired News has questioned whether Charter users can really opt-out of being monitored, or if they will only be able to opt-out of receiving targeted ads.[17] The same writer has asked if it would breach anti-wiretapping laws.[17]

A report by Robert M. Topolski, chief technology consultant of the Free Press and Public Knowledge , shows that NebuAd's devices create cookies on end-users machines by injecting a specious packet into the end of the data stream returned in response to some web page requests submitted to major search engines Google and Yahoo. The content of this specious packet, which will be added to the end of the web page when it is rendered by the end-user's browser, contains HTML Script tags which cause the browser to request javascript from http://a.faireagle.com. [20]

Some critics are concerned that NebuAd superimposes its own advertising over the ads of other advertisers, or places additional advertising to page. The substance to these concerns can likely be traced to the company's "Fair Eagle" operation, patent application data that mention such inventions, and a loose relationship to Claria Corporation whose products and history suggest such tactics.

In 2007 it was reported that Redmoon, a Texas based ISP was using a NebuAd technology to inject Redmoon's own advertising into pages visited by its users.[21] The "Fair Eagle" advertisement hardware, provided by NebuAd, inserted additional advertising along side of the content of web pages. The ads featured a window with the "Fair Eagle" title bar. The injected ads stopped appearing toward the end of June, 2007.[22]

Some senior staff members of NebuAd used to work at ad company Claria Corporation (formerly, the Gator Corporation), famous for ad software known as Gator[23]. Both Claria and NebuAd are located in Redwood City, California[23]. The June 2006 creation[24] of nebuad.com coincides with timing of Claria's decision to shutdown[25] the Gator service. A press release stated, "Claria will exit out of the adware business by the end of the second quarter of 2006."[25] NebuAd has repeatedly denied any corporate connection to Claria, describing its hiring of Claria employees as a result of that company shedding employees in a tight market for experienced advertising sales staff in the Valley. [23]

NebuAd's ISP Partners

ISPs trialing or deploying, or preparing to deploy Nebuad include

Some ISPs have ended or suspended their relationship with NebuAd.

  • Charter Communications suspended its plans[35] to test NebuAd following scrutiny from lawmakers and privacy groups[36].
  • An Embarq[35] spokesperson told the Associated Press that it ended its trial with NebuAd, and has not decided whether to move forward with Behavioral Targeting advertising "either through NebuAd or with any other vendor"[37].
  • CenturyTel, one of the earliest known ISPs to test NebuAd[3], notified customers in late May of 2008 that it was deploying the hardware[38], only to pull out of the deal alongside of Charter a month later[39].

References

  1. ^ "Management & Investors". Retrieved 2008-04-26.
  2. ^ a b "American ISPs already sharing data with outside ad firms". The Register. 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2008-04-18.
  3. ^ a b "Watching What You See on the Web". The Wall Street Journal. 2007-12-06. Retrieved 2008-05-21.
  4. ^ "Every Click You Make". washingtonpost. 2008-04-04. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  5. ^ "Juniper Networks partners with NebuAd to enable ISPs to participate in online advertising revenues on the web". juniperamspmarketing.com. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
  6. ^ "NebuAd Observes 'Useful, but Innocuous' Web Browsing". The New York Times. 2008/04/07. Retrieved 2008-04-18. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Bradner, Scott (2007/02/07). "An invisible abomination". Network World. Retrieved 2008-04-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ "NebuAd / Privacy". Retrieved 2008-06-28.
  9. ^ "WOW Terms and Conditions". Retrieved 2008-04-30.
  10. ^ a b c d "Data pimping catches ISP on the hop". The Register. 2008/04/22. Retrieved 2008-04-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ a b c "Infighting At ISPs Over Using NebuAD". Broadband Reports.
  12. ^ a b "Questions for Bob Dykes, NebuAd CEO". clickz. 2008-01-03. Retrieved 2008-05-14. Cite error: The named reference "clickzinterview" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  13. ^ "Charter Cable to Spy on its Broadband Users to Serve Targeted Ads via NebuAd". Digital Destiny. 2008-05-14. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  14. ^ "ISPs Collect User Data for Behavioral Ad Targeting". ClickZ. 2008-01-03. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  15. ^ "CDT Urges Stronger Guidelines for Behavioral Advertising". 2008-06-12. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  16. ^ "Wide Open West Using NebuAD Users don't get much of a heads up..." 2008-03-11. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |title= at position 28 (help)
  17. ^ a b c d Single, Ryan (2008-05-16). "Can Charter Broadband Customers Really Opt-Out of Spying? Maybe Not". Wired. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  18. ^ "ISP Data Collection - Congress Investigation Urged (NebuAd-CDT Press Release)". 2008-06-06. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
  19. ^ Metz, Cade (2008-05-16). "US Congress questions legality of Phorm and the Phormettes". The Register. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
  20. ^ Topolski, Robert (2008-06-18). "NebuAd and Partner ISPs: Wiretapping, Forgery and Browser Hijacking" (PDF). Free Press. Retrieved 2008-06-19.
  21. ^ "Real Evil: ISP Inserted Advertising". Techcrunch. 2007/06/23. Retrieved 2008-04-26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ "benanderson.net-Fair Eagle taking over the world? ISPs being compromised or just cheap?". 2007/06/22. Retrieved 2008-06-19. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ a b c "NebuAd looks to 'spyware' firm for recruits". The Register. 2008-06-20. Retrieved 2008-06-20.
  24. ^ http://whois.domaintools.com/nebuad.com
  25. ^ a b http://www.techweb.com/wire/security/183701933
  26. ^ "Bresnan actively intercepting ALL packets". Retrieved 2008-06-18.
  27. ^ a b "Broadstripe Now Selling User Browsing History, Joins growing list of NebuAD customers". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-05-14. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  28. ^ "Broadstripe High Speed Internet Online Privacy Policy". Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  29. ^ a b c "OnlyInternet.Net uses NebuAd for Behavioral Targeting". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
  30. ^ "One More ISP to add to the list of ISPs". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
  31. ^ "And Even One More ISP to add to NebuAds Harem". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
  32. ^ "RTC on Line aka Rochester Telephone Company sells to NebuAd". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
  33. ^ "SOFTCOM also on the NebuAd gravy train". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
  34. ^ "20/20 Communications and NebuAd". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-26. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
  35. ^ a b "Charter Will Monitor Customers' Web Surfing to Target Ads". The New York Times. 2008/05/14. Retrieved 2008-05-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  36. ^ Bode, Karl (2008-06-24). "Charter User Monitoring Plans Suspended - 'Enhanced user experience' apparently not so enhanced..." BroadbandReports.com. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  37. ^ Svensson, Peter (2008-06-25). "ISPs still considering tracking Web use". Salon.com. Retrieved 2008-06-25.
  38. ^ "CenturyTel and NebuAd". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
  39. ^ "CenturyTel Drops NebuAd". BroadbandReports.com. 2008-06-27. Retrieved 2008-06-27.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NebuAd&oldid=222703466"