[ NNSquad ] Re: Free Press/Public Knowledge Investigation Finds NebuAd Wiretaps Consumers and Hijacks Web Sites

[Barry Gold <bgold@matrix-consultants.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
  [snip]
> Topolski found that NebuAd, after being installed on the WOW! network, injects extra hidden code into a user’s browser that was not sent by the Web site being visited.  That code directs the user’s Web browser to another site not requested or even seen by the consumer, where hidden code is downloaded and executed to add more tracking cookies.  The consumer then sees ads based on NebuAd’s profile of a user’s browsing habits -- built through the secretly collected information.
>  
> By changing the computer code for Web sites to insert information into the packets of data sent to consumers, NebuAd and its ISP partners “violate several fundamental expectations of Internet privacy, security and standards-based interoperability,” the report found.

They are also, I'm fairly sure, violating the copyrights of those 
website by creating an unauthorized derivative work.

The "fundamental expectations of internet privacy, 
security,...interoperability" are subject to debate -- reasonable people 
can disagree on whether or not those "expectations" apply to today's 
(often not-very-tech-savvy) users.

But IMAO the copyright law is quite clear on this.  Taking somebody 
else's creation (which includes a web page), changing it, and then 
handing the changed version off to somebody else in place of the 
original violates every US copyright law I can think of -- pre-1978, 
1978 revision, DMCA, you name it.  If the original webpage includes 
trademarks, it may also be a trademark violation.  Think of taking a 
TiVo, opening it up, making changes to the circuitry and/or software, 
closing it up agqain, and then selling it with the TiVo logo still on 
the case.

These are serious violations, and if this goes on I would expect to see 
legal action by damn near every major website operator: GM, IBM, Google, 
Ebay, Facebook, Apple, MicroSoft...  I'm pretty sure these companies 
expect their webpages to be delivered to the end user _exactly_ as they 
sent them, not with somebody else's ads inserted, and not with somebody 
else's tracking cookies that freeload value onto _their_ content.

[snip]