NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Congress Begins Deep Packet Inspection of Internet Providers - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com
----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave@farber.net> ----- Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:06:02 -0400 From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> Subject: [IP] Congress Begins Deep Packet Inspection of Internet Providers - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com Reply-To: dave@farber.net To: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/congress-begins-deep-packet-inspection-of-internet-providers/ Congress Begins Deep Packet Inspection of Internet Providers By SAUL HANSELL Congress picked up its look at online privacy where it left off last year: whether Internet providers can look at where customers surf online. Jay Mallin/Bloomberg Rep. Rick Boucher of Virginia Angry comments by members of Congress at several hearings last year were enough to get several Internet providers to drop plans to to show Internet users ads based on where they surf. On Thursday, a House subcommittee asked whether the practice needed to be outlawed. The technology behind this, called deep packet inspection, raised the ire of Representative Rick Boucher, the Democrat from Virginia who chairs the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. “The thought that a network operator could track a user’s every move on the Internet, record the details of every search and read every e-mail or attached document is alarming,” he said in his opening remarks at ahearing, which heard testimony from privacy advocates and representatives of the cable industry. Defending the practice was Kyle McSlarrow, the chief executive of the National Cable Television Association. Deep packet inspection, he said in his opening statement, was useful ... [ see full article for more -- Lauren ]