Today’s blog brings you a cautionary tale from the land of seemingly innocuous information collection and handling. Ars Technica writes about how ISPs like RCN have been cooperating with companies like Paxfire to sell your search queries in an unusual way:
What commonly happens is that specific search queries (usually for brand names) made from an address bar no longer return the expected Web search results page from Bing or Google or Yahoo. If your ISP has such DNS servers configured, and your computer points to them (most ISP subscribers will by default), typing “Apple” into a browser search bar will take you directly to Apple’s webpage, bypassing the expected search results page.
So, what’s wrong with this?
The problem is that searches are communications with intended recipients and therefore are protected by the Wiretap act. By grabbing those communications before they arrive and using them for their own gain, ISPs may be engaging in unlawful wiretapping!
You may not realize it, but you have plenty of exposure to the protections of various wiretapping laws. This is why customer service directories remind you with recordings that “your call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.” By saying that, the customer service center is getting implied consent to record your conversation (implied by staying on the line). It’s a very easy way to stay out of trouble in places where two parties must consent to record a conversation.
It’s a shame these companies didn’t follow suit in the online context. They could just as easily include in the Privacy Policy or Terms of Use a notice to customers that their searches may be redirected. But the companies doing this probably didn’t realize at the time that they were stepping dangerously close to violating wiretap laws.
As businesses try to find innovative ways of generating revenue on the web, problems like this will continue to crop up. Never forget that Terms of Use and Privacy Policies are real contracts like any other. Ignore them (or copy-paste them from competitors—yes, it happens) at your own peril.
