Rogers forces own content onto users
Canadian ISP, Rogers, provides invasive messages onto your web pages.
While we all know that everything we see and do on the Internet can, in theory, be seen in turn by our respective ISPs, we sit safe in the knowledge that the ISP just doesn't care: with the possible exception of an ongoing criminal investigation they have neither the time nor the inclination to sift through billions of packets every second looking for juicy tidbits.
This feeling of security is being threatened, however, by an unholy alliance between high-speed Internet access provider Rogers and in-browser advertising specialists PerfTech.
Currently the system is simple: by using the deep-packet inspection tools it already has (for looking for naughty BitTorrent traffic), Rogers is able to see when you visit such pages as the Google homepage and insert branded 'status messages' at the top. These messages are currently limited to benign information about your account such as how close you are to exceeding your data transfer allowance for the month. Although the messages may be benign, the mechanism certainly isn't.
It's all too easy to imagine a Rogers-PerfTech-Google alliance that would use this breach of the sanctity of in-transit data to place 'unobtrusive' text ads at the top of every single page you visit: something that worries page owners who rely on their own advertising revenue almost as much as it worries you.
In response to the bad feeling being broadcast around various news organisations as a result of this move (including, now, this one) their Vice-President of Communications, Taanta Gupta, issued a statement claiming to be “trying different things,” and “test[ing] customer response.”
Gupta also claimed the intrusive status messages were “useful information for the customer to have," but isn't that what advertisers (and, indeed, spammers) always say?
Are you pleased with being able to see such “useful information” at zero effort to yourself, or should ISPs take a more hands-off approach and just provide Internet service (if only there was an acronym to describe a neutral provider of Internet service...)? Vent your spleen in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyI hope this doesn't start a trend. To me this feels like the WD mybook thing. I hope i never have to use rogers for my ISP.
That being said, I can see a bandwidth monitor at the ISP level being a handy tool if it told you how much you've used in the month, although it's something I'd rather see on the account page of the users ISP, (with the possibly of a vista sidebar gadget to interrogate and display it) as a lot of the time (especially if there are multiple computers/consoles & users in a household) you have no idea how much bandwidth you've actually used.
If I want to view my bandwidth I can just go to my ISPs management page and log in. That's the way it should be.
Personally I'm against the whole capped braodband thing. I have 2 pcs in my house, raising to 3pcs and a laptop after Xmas, all being connected to the internet for at least 4 hours a day. All those together would eat up at my limit and if my ISP followed Rogers' idea then we'd be spending a small fortune every month. Luckily enough my ISP doesn't cap my broadband, but I do have to go for the fastest package to make sure I get decent speeds when the other pcs are all on :(
Hmmm, I wonder if they make that "free" bandwidth. If not, I think you may have a point, TGImages.
Personally, the moment that this starts happening to me here in the States, I'll be looking to use a darknet service over in Sweden or something and SSH in. All they'll see are a bunch of AES256 encryption. Good luck, ISP. :P If you want to see what I'm browsing for THAT badly, more power to you.
What will be really special is when they use that "deep packet" technology to make "helpful" suggestions and browser-guided advertising. You'll have to be encrypted just to be able to browse the web in peace. :(
It's pretty obvious where this is going with most businesses these days. Trying to generate as much revenue as possible, whilst that's fine in my eyes what they're doing here is not. They've crossed the fine line of providing a service and paying the bills. Infact what they're doing now is providing a service and paying the bills fine they've decided to be greedy (as usual ) and are affecting the quality of their service.
Exactly. This is just another excuse to put something up/advertise and if anyone questions it "oh but it has it's uses such as ... showing your balance in your account and ... shoving you with more ads" (as if the internet isn't full of obtrusive popups already).
Sometimes I read the usual news about big companies trying to make as much money as possible and I wish that us consumers could start something similar to what employees would call a strike.
Worst case scenario. Buy a Wi-Fi setup and there you go :P
Cheaper then Bell, better then Bell, descent service, very fast (personally going at advertised speed (7Mbps), and usually over board 8Mbps on xmas day), and always connected modem.
*I wonder how much this'll increase now i've just got a 3G/HSDPA capable PDA phone instead of my old GPRS one?
@devdevil - bell canada != bell usa. no relation to AT&T.
One morning out of no wear, I have a Bell technician come on my door of my apt, and says he is here for Internet installation and ExpressView (digital TV crap using a stupid dish), and a nice bill mentioning that I have somehow subscribe to ALL of Bell services with ALL extras, all that with a 3 YEAR CONTRACT.
Obviously I did not let him in, and beside my apt building is old and the phones jacks doesn't support DSL, and we don't have the right to put a dish anywhere. It was a nice fight. Luckily I know a reporter (friend) from CBC, and I told him about my story and said he will call them and see what will happen.
Well 24hours later, I receive a personal call from Bell with their apologies and with "we thought you would be interested on all of that" (don't ask!, I don't' know what is their problem to tell me what I want... but anyway) and free phone service for 2 years (expect long distance call) and with free caller ID.
If companies really want revenue, they should start making decent products that people really want. And actual quality products. Nothing moves more merchandise then word of mouth. (Hence why bit tech here gets goodies from all the manufacturers, good reviews + genuine care = sales and vis-versa for products that suck, hopefully pushing the manufacturers to creating better products.)
:)
Suffice to say once I found out all the parked domains I had with them had their DNS deleted, I wouldn't have minded if the revenue generated from my domains 'free' holding page was split 50/50 with me, but as you can guess...it wasn't.
yup. in Canada, AT&T = Rogers. we call it 'Rogers AT&T'....... (and it owns Fido now, which i use for my cell :( and its been goin downhill ever since... stupid Rogers)