Senate panel to examine NebuAd's Web monitoring system

Executives from major Internet players are due for a grilling about online privacy in a Senate committee hearing today, but the company likely to get the most scrutiny is a small Silicon Valley start-up called NebuAd. NebuAd has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates in recent weeks for working with Internet service providers to track the online behavior of their customers and then serve up targeted banner ads based on that behavior. According to Ari Schwartz, vice president of civil liberties group Center for Democracy & Technology, NebuAd's business model raises many of the same concerns as an earlier generation of "adware" firms. Those companies developed software programs that -- when downloaded to a computer -- could track where a user went on the Internet and mine that information to deliver customized online ads. Privacy activists say adware companies duped many Web surfers into downloading their software programs by bundling them with free screen savers, online games and other Internet applications. But NebuAd has a new twist: It works directly with Internet service providers to scan their customers' Web surfing habits and deliver ads presumed to be of interest to them.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-nebuad9-2008jul09,0,1...
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