Is Shaw Selling Your Clicks?
Big news from the Open Data Conference 2007. David Cancel, the CEO of Compete Inc. revealed that ISPs sell clickstream data. How much are your clicks worth? About 40 cents a month per customer and the Compete's CEO estimates that there are 10-12 big buyers of this data. In other words, your ISP is probably making about $5 a month ($60 a year) off your clickstreams. Who could be a buyer? Could this be why Google's search results sometimes border on Clairvoyance?
The data is not sold with accompanying user name or information, but merely as a numerical user value. However, it is still theoretically possible to tie this information to a specific ISP account with the number of users who are are on effectively static IP addresses via high-speed cable and ADSL. Cancel told Ars that his company licenses the data from ISPs for millions of dollars. He did not give a specific figure about what this broke down to in terms of dollars per ISP user, although someone in the audience estimated that it was in the range of 40¢ per user per month—this estimate was erroneously attributed to Cancel himself in some reports on the event. Cancel said that this clickstream data is "much more comprehensive" than data that is normally gleaned through analyzing search queries.
Someone points out that this is just as bad as the AOL search thing. "It's much worse!" David says -- his excited eyes indicating that he's a happy customer. Someone else observes that "worse" is in the eye of the beholder: for the ISPs it's awesome.
The Open Data morning session ended with a general consensus that consumers would be surprised and outraged by the amount of online data that is being collected, stored, and sold--and that sooner or later some smart journalist will pretend to discover this secret and trigger a consumer firestorm.
There is no word how much Shaw and Telus are selling their clickstream data for. Nor is there any word as to whether or not they will continue the practice. When contacted, both companies declined to comment. Wanna try to get an answer? You can find their contact/help forms here: Shaw, Rogers, and Telus.
I'm sure it won't be long before there's a Clicksteam class action afoot.
The data is not sold with accompanying user name or information, but merely as a numerical user value. However, it is still theoretically possible to tie this information to a specific ISP account with the number of users who are are on effectively static IP addresses via high-speed cable and ADSL. Cancel told Ars that his company licenses the data from ISPs for millions of dollars. He did not give a specific figure about what this broke down to in terms of dollars per ISP user, although someone in the audience estimated that it was in the range of 40¢ per user per month—this estimate was erroneously attributed to Cancel himself in some reports on the event. Cancel said that this clickstream data is "much more comprehensive" than data that is normally gleaned through analyzing search queries.
Someone points out that this is just as bad as the AOL search thing. "It's much worse!" David says -- his excited eyes indicating that he's a happy customer. Someone else observes that "worse" is in the eye of the beholder: for the ISPs it's awesome.
The Open Data morning session ended with a general consensus that consumers would be surprised and outraged by the amount of online data that is being collected, stored, and sold--and that sooner or later some smart journalist will pretend to discover this secret and trigger a consumer firestorm.
There is no word how much Shaw and Telus are selling their clickstream data for. Nor is there any word as to whether or not they will continue the practice. When contacted, both companies declined to comment. Wanna try to get an answer? You can find their contact/help forms here: Shaw, Rogers, and Telus.
I'm sure it won't be long before there's a Clicksteam class action afoot.
posted by A. Proud (Foolsoft Employee) at 7:16 AM
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