Is Your ISP Spying on You?

In a New York Times OpEd titled "The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users, Adam Cohen notes:

"If George Orwell had lived in the Internet age, he could have painted a grim picture of how Web monitoring could be used to promote authoritarianism. There is no need for neighborhood informants and paper dossiers if the government can see citizens’ every Web site visit, e-mail and text message."

And it gets worse. According to "Every Click You Make" by Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post:

"The online behavior of a small but growing number of computer users in the United States is monitored by their Internet service providers, who have access to every click and keystroke that comes down the line."

Whoriskey further explains:

"...the new monitoring, known as "deep-packet inspection," enables a far wider view -- every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search entered. Every bit of data is divided into packets -- like electronic envelopes -- that the system can access and analyze for content."

Estimates are as many as 10% of U.S. customers are being tracked this way.

As you read these two articles, consider that for many of us, our phone provider, cable tv provider, and Internet service provider are often one and the same.