Verizon to start spying on internet usage in July!
molitar
Enthusiast - Level 3

Verizon sells out to the RIAA and starts spying on their clients!

http://rt.com/usa/news/internet-providers-year-sherman-661/

If they start this they better let me out of my contract as this is an invasion of privacy!  I signed petition againt this invasion of my rights!

http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/backdoor_sopa/?akid=1280.197550.odzaPn&rd=1&t=3

Re: Verizon to start spying on internet usage in July!
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Everyone already does this!

This is just a case of handing more keys to the media conglomerates to allow them to patrol their copyrighted medium. On one side of me I can't blame them. On another, I really believe they are out of their mind. I do not support the motives behind the SOPA-related bills, considering my position in the technican world.

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Re: Verizon to start spying on internet usage in July!
lasagna
Community Leader
Community Leader

OK, this might not be the most popular response, but I'm going to play devil's advocate here and view this from another perspective and see how it doesn't necessarily consititute an invasion of privacy and may in fact protect your privacy.

If you read the article, the methods don't amount to an invasion of privacy because the ISP is not monitoring any of the content associated with you.   Instead, it is enabling the RIAA and others to have a reporting mechanism whereby they can report a copyright violation and the ISP can in turn based on the time and IP address provided in the report associate that with a particular customer account -- and pass the notification along to you.   Prior to this, the RIAA or others would have to get a court order to compel the ISP to disclose your identity to them and them notify you directly -- instead, this allows the RIAA to notify the ISP and then the ISP notifies you without needing to disclose your identity.   In return, they agree to track these violations and take action if a specific customer is a repeat offender by throttling content or eventually terminating service.

In a warped way, it's a win-win scenario for the RIAA and the ISP because it allows the RIAA to conain copyright infringement while the ISP can protect the identity of their customers from court ordered disclosure while at the same time having justification for removing the heaviest bandwidth abusers if they are involved in illegal downloading.

So, how do they do that without monitoring your content?   Well, you're your own worst enemy here ... people engaged in illegal downloading often troll the net looking for BitTorrent sites which contain the pirated material they are after and attempt to download it -- some of these sites are RIAA sponsored honeypots which track and record the IP address and content being downloaded.   Once that happens they notify the owner of the address space of the violation.  So, the ISP knows nothing about it, it's relying on material being reported to it by the RIAA or their representative.

Is there a potential for abuse here?  Sure ... the RIAA or other reporting entity could be overzealous in their reporting and cause the ISP to block or throttle a customer inappropriately -- this is the check and balance that the article mentions.  By the same token however, the ISP needs to investigate and work with the customer on any reports to insure they are legitimate -- which the article also cites as seemingly not happening either.

So, at the center of this ... if you don't download illegal content, the RIAA and others won't ever see you and thus report you.   If you stream large amounts of content -- but all of it legal from the likes of HULU or Netflix, the ISP would see only that your are a heavy consumer of bandwidth -- not specificly "what" you're doing.   No invasion of privacy is involved.

Now, there are those who will disagree and say that any attempts to manage traffic or prevent even illegal activities on the Internert is unacceptable -- and they are entitled to that opinion.   But as a consumer, I don't support copyright infringement or illegal downloading -- but by the same token I believe such activity must be first proven before action is blindly taken with burden of proof not on the consumer but on the company making the complaint.   I opposed SOPA and PIPA because they granted direct action without legal recourse prior to such action.   This on the other hand would appear to have a mechanism in place which protects individual's privacy while at the same time allows time for a consumer to object prior to any negative actions being taken.   The trick however will be in if ISP can be compelled to disclose data they collected on consumers as a result of the reports without a specific court order to identify a specific repeat offender.

Re: Verizon to start spying on internet usage in July!
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

^^ Thanks for summing up my own internal thoughts. It's tough to get that stuff out half of the time in fear of being bashed (I visit too many other forums lol).

Re: Verizon to start spying on internet usage in July!
Anak1
Contributor - Level 1

That's all well, and good, but I have looked around VZ's web site, and have not found anything about this new development nor have I received anything in my emails or USPS.

Why do I have to find out about it second hand, meaning web articles, and threads like this one?

I would like to hear the official Verizon position on this new policy..

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Re: Verizon to start spying on internet usage in July!
ElizabethS
Moderator Emeritus

As this thread is now over two years old, it will be locked in order to keep discussions current. If you have the same or a similar question/issue we invite you to start a new thread on the topic.

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