[WSJ] Carrier Ad-Insertion Returns!

 
While the FCC goes back to its Net Neutrality plans (see "FCC Moving on Net Neutrality?" - here), the Wall Street Journal had a front page (at least in its iPad edition) story on ad-insertion, or behavioral advertising, a revenue generation opportunity for carriers

I covered this space in the past, about companies that disappeared (Nebuad & Phorm - here and here) and those that are still there (Xerocole - here, Kindsight - here). The basic concept was targeted advertising, based on subscribers’ behavior with revenues shared by the vendor and the carrier.

DPI is needed for the ad-insertion process in order to analyze subscribers' traffic and make it more efficient by re-directing only relevant traffic to the behavioral processing. Privacy problem, and lack of disclosure made some of the players go away - and brought an investigation against BT that was secretly using Phorm back in 2006 (see "BT's Phorm trial lands UK Government in court" - here).


Source: Wall Street Journal



Now, the Wall Street Journal (see "Shunned Profiling Method On the Verge of Comeback" - here) reports that business sees a comeback (following Japan? - here). I guess the choice of the word "profiling" (not allowed in the US) shows the authors' sentiment for the move. Some quotes, from a rather long article:

Now, two U.S. companies, Kindsight Inc. and Phorm Inc., are pitching deep packet inspection services as a way for Internet service providers to claim a share of the lucrative online ad market.

Kindsight and Phorm say they protect people's privacy with steps that include obtaining their consent. They also say they don't use the full power of the technology, and refrain from reading email and analyzing sensitive online activities Two large ISPs in Brazil—Oi, a unit of Tele Norte Leste Participacoes SA, and Telefonica SA—currently have deals with Phorm 

Mr. Gassewitz [top picture] says six ISPs have tested Kindsight's security service on subscriber groups as big as 200,000. Mr. Gassewitz says, "There was no profiling occurring, no advertising occurring, no data collection occurring."

Oi's Mr. Pedro Ripper, Oi's strategy and technology believes that the technology's time has come. "The Internet is becoming more and more a platform to deliver very targeted messages," he says. As for deep packet inspection, "Everyone is going to get there. It's just a matter of timing"