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You would think that AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner execs had turned a page and formed a new front in defense of your online rights.
Late last month, they lined up before the Senate to mouth principles that would, in their words, ensure that Internet "consumers have ultimate control over the use of their personal information and guards against privacy abuses."
The issue spins around the use of a content-filtering technology called "deep packet inspection" or DPI, which allows network managers to inspect, track and target user Internet content as our information passes along the Information Superhighway.
Headlines following the Senate hearing struck a reassuring note, declaring these companies were taking a stand with consumers and "keeping their distance" from DPI.
But we did our own packet inspection and found that the telcos' actions often speak louder than their testimony.
Breaking and Entering
DPI forms the cornerstone of plans to police the Internet and profit from Web content. Using DPI companies like AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner would be able to decide whether a packet can pass or be routed to a different lane on the Superhighway. It lets them pry open user's trunks, erect new tolls and sell off or bar privileged access based on what they find inside.
"Simply put, Deep Packet Inspection is the Internet equivalent of the postal service reading your mail," Public Knowledge founder Gigi Sohn said during the September hearing. "They might be reading your mail for any number of reasons, but the fact remains that your mail is being read by the very people whose job it is to deliver it."
In January, AT&T lobbyist James Cicconi said the company was testing Web technology so that it could scour user traffic.
The company's stated goal was to help the copyright cops in the recording and motion picture industry stop illegal sharing of music and movies. (This is why these same companies have also formed a bulwark against Net Neutrality rules that would prevent such snooping.)
But once the technology is in place, AT&T can use it to inspect so much more.
Internet Troopers
DPI is already being used by other governments, including China and Burma to prevent politically sensitive information from making it in or out of their countries.
See more stories tagged with: at&t, verizon, time warner, internet freedom, deep packet inspection
Timothy Karr is the author of MediaCitizen, a weblog about the future of America's media. He is the campaign director of Free Press. From September 2003 through February 2005, Karr was executive director of MediaChannel.org and Media for Democracy.
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