Privacy Issues, Government Probe Stir Hard Feelings Between AT&T, Google

Turning up the heat in a debate about Internet privacy that’s already seen the federal government put Web giants on the defensive, AT&T (News - Alert) Inc. reportedly is slamming the king of online searching and advertising, Google Inc.

 

AT&T appeared to point directly to Google’s (News - Alert) well-publicized response to a House committee request of 33 companies’ approaches to ad targeting and privacy. Google, a Web firm, focused in its own response on the use of network-based deep packet inspection, a technology Google doesn’t use because it doesn’t have a network, while playing down the threat of its own information based on searches.

 

“We note that the responses of certain companies such as Google suggest that your inquiry is narrow and focused on a single technology: deep-packet inspection,” AT&T said in a footnote to its response, which was signed by Dorothy Attwood, AT&T senior vice president, public policy and chief privacy officer. “We do not read the questions so narrowly. Indeed to do so suggests that the significant policy questions posed here depend on the technology at issue.”

 

Analysts say the Internet rivals are using the government’s request to frame in their own favor the issues surrounding ad targeting and privacy.

 

It isn’t news that Google and other Web companies use toolbars to track every move that users make online.

 

Yet privacy issues have emerged as Web traffic grows and technologies such as targeted advertising become more sophisticated.

 

TMC President and Group Editor-In-Chief Rich Tehrani recently wrote about a battle brewing as Congress begins taking a more proactive role in Internet, and in particular, DPI, regulation.

 

“Some groups are not happy about DPI technology and are protesting its use,” Tehrani writes. “In some cases they are protesting its use to target advertising. As always, new technologies have the potential to ruffle feathers at first. The problem with DPI however is that users aren’t aware it is even being used. I wonder if it will be the governments who come out in favor of some sort of legislation regarding how DPI data is used. I will certainly keep you posted. This should be an interesting battle to watch.”

 

In its response to the government, AT&T says directly that Google does far more than merely track consumer Web surfing activity.

 

“They now have the ability to observe a user’s entire Web browsing experience at a granular level, including all URLs visited, all searches and actual page-views,” AT&T wrote, criticizing such practices as “highly invisible “ and raising “greater privacy concerns.”

 

According to AT&T, “ad networks and other non-ISPs employ these methodologies at the individual browser or computer level, and they are as effective as any technique that an ISP might employ at creating specific customer profiles and enabling highly targeted advertising.”

 

If anything, AT&T says, the largely invisible practices of ad-networks raise even greater privacy concerns than do the behavioral advertising techniques that ISPs could employ, “such as deep-packet-inspection, which have primary application beyond mere targeted advertising, including managing network congestion, detecting viruses and combating child pornography.”