ISPs Inserting Ads Into Your Pages

TheWoozle writes "Some ISPs are resorting to a new tactic to increase revenue: inserting advertisements into web pages requested by their end users. They use a transparent web proxy (such as this one) to insert javascript and/or HTML with the ads into pages returned to users. Neither the content providers nor the end-users have been notified that this is taking place, and I'm sure that they weren't asked for permission either."

Suprise!

It's not like we pay them for our internet access or anything.

Oh wait, we do... crap.

Re:Suprise!

Yes they have. It's called "product placement", and it's getting more invasive.

More invasive? Time to go back to the history books, Sonny.

Things used to be much worse. Advertisers would have their logos splashed all over TV shows and movies. On TV news they would be on the anchor desks, in the backgrounds, even on the clothes the anchors would wear.

There's a great exhibit in the Old Louisiana State Capitol [glasssteelandstone.com] that is an old TV news set from the 50's. The news was called something like "The Esso Seven O'Clock News" and there's a big Esso logo on the front of the desk, and I think one on the microphone as well as other places.

Quite an eye-opener. At least modern product placement is subtle. I think we're just getting more sensitive to it.

Re:Suprise!

It seems to be more and more common to see games in PC and console games

I'd be asking for a refund if this weren't the case!

Re:Suprise!

I thought my ISP was doing this but when I called to complain the helpful tech support person told me that the sites I was visiting must have added new ads to them, since they would never do such a thing. Thanks for reassuring me, John!

So, slashdot, why are you running 50 ads at the top of every page? I thought when I subscribed I wouldn't have to see these anymore, but since you don't have a friendly guy I can call to talk to about it, I'll have to assume you're trying to screw me over here.

Re:Suprise!

Don't worry! Your Free Market(tm) will take care of this! You can always chose not to have internet, or lay your own fiber! Completely realistic options. It's not my fault you can't afford that. You should have started an ISP just like everyone else!

Re:Suprise!

Reminds me of how back when cable TV started up the idea is that you were paying for more channels and you wouldn't have to deal with ads. Looks like some things never change.

Actually, I'm more pissed as a content provider then I am as a consumer. How dare they! If I wanted advertising on my content, I'd put it there, and get paid for it. For me, this is totally stealing from content providers and not just annoying to consumers. I mean, isn't that like making money off of other peoples content? Wouldn't that be more like a telephone company forcing you to listen to an add before you place or receive a call? Imagine....

Phone rings and you pick up....

(You) - Hello? (Automated Hell) - Hello, this is A-T-And T, we have a call for you, but first, we'd like you to enjoy a message from our sponsors...
(You) - Click!

Fuck that! Stealing content...bullshit.

Re:Suprise!

I am pissed that they are even addressing my http stream through proxy. Technically, that is eavesdropping my session. Not to mention that just looking for the place to insert the ad will most certainly screw up many web applications. Once an ISP crosses this line there is no limit on what they can do. Things like feeding you a bogus SSL cert while making it appear perfectly legit and decrypting your traffic, redirecting entire web sites, blocking content without your knowledge...it goes on and on. The ISP even having this information in their logs starts a huge slippery slope.

Everyone, immediately call a lawyer and run away from any ISP that does this. You have been warned.

Re:Suprise!

Clearly you're not familiar with CALEA. They not only log your traffic, they store all the packets so the courts can request them later.

Um, how? Even a 10Mbit pipe is 108GB / day. So how much bandwidth does a typical ISP use, and where do they get enough storage to remember it all?

Re:Suprise!

And let's just say that the ISP could save every packet from every user on the ISP...let's just think of the size of that porn collection. Think about...huge quantities of porn; a vast sea of it. The amount of porn that most slashdotters can only dream about.

DNS hijacking does allow defeat of SSL

> To have a man-in-the-middle, all you need is a certificate signed by an authority that your computer trusts. The ISP can surely get that.

Give this man a cookie, or at least a mod point.

Once they manage to get your browser loaded up with a CA they control it is game over. Imagine, you type www.chase.com into your browser. Remember, THEY also operate your DNS. They resolve www.chase.com to an address they control and generate a certificate linking www.chase.com to that IP. Meanwhile their proxy server connects to the real https://www.chase.com/ [chase.com] and retrieves the homepage. Then their faked out server reencrypts the content and their inserted ad and sends it on to your browser which displays it with the lock intact.

This is what the various secure DNS proposals are intended to address. DNS hijacking allows almost any abuse in the higher layers.

Re:Suprise!

I tell you, I am highly ticked off that, at least where I live, there's no way to get a broadband ISP who promises to deliver one thing: a pipe. That's all I want: a pipe. I can't be alone. Just give me a pipe and leave me to use it the way I want to. Don't filter my e-mail. Don't redirect my DNS queries. Don't disallow traffic to/from ports. Don't block pings. Just give me a pipe. What's so hard about that? Good grief, if you want to, you can even charge me extra.

I am almost always against laws (which are often worse than the ill they are trying to right), but it seems to me that there ought to be some sort of regulation that requires ISPs (since they are mostly effectively monopolies) to offer a transparent pipe for those who want to avoid all their obnoxious practices.

Re:Suprise!

Funny, I was under the impression that there was a lawsuit about some Microsoft technology that added links to other content providers' pages that argued that the practice was a violation of copyright (because by altering your content, they are in effect creating their own derivative work without your permissions). Couldn't you just slap them with a DMCA takedown notice?

Re:Suprise!

No. This is NOT GeoCities. GeoCities added adverts to the websites you hosted with them. You knew EXACTLY what they do in return for "free" webspace. This is like getting a colo box so you can reach your customers better (ie. not relying on the shared webhost), make sure you have clean pages to attract customers then some fucker comes along and sticks adds on *your* page without *your* permission.

What GeoCities does is OK. The content provider has to agree.

What some ISPs do in return for free internet is OK too (add popups or whatever) - at least that what used to happen. In this case customers KNOW that the popups are from the ISP. But popups *must* be separate from the webpage, not in it.

But if you come along and *insert* ads on my pages and thus benefit from my work, I have no choice but to sue. That is copyright violation. Period. They are costing the content provider money.

Re:Suprise!

Like creating a derivative work? This is taking someone else's work in transit from server to client, inserting other content into it, then sending this modified version on to the client instead.

This isn't like creating a derivative work, it is creating a derivative work. They're even profiting from it, as they're selling the ad space thus created.

What about code validation?

I know this won't be everyone's primary concern, but what happens to all of those pages carefully crafted to adhere to a specific standard eg HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1 or whatever else you may choose? Surely, unless these uninvited contributions also adhere to that specific standard, we have no hope of producing standards-compliant documents.

Re:What about code validation?

I had that with my old ISP (Virgin.net). I wrote a simple webpage in HTML 4.01, checked it was valid with W3C's Markup Validation Service, and then uploaded it. When I checked it there was script just after the html element but before the head. Not what I wanted to see on a page that not only asserted I knew something about writing HTML, but also had the W3C validation link at the bottom.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html><s cript src="http://www.virgin.net/js/random_ad.js" language="javascript"></script>
<!-- Document is valid. However, Virgin.net inserts a <script> element here -->
<head>
<...

Re:What about code validation?

I found something funny with using XHTML 1.1. Certain free hosting sites are totally oblivious to its existence, so if you rename all your pages to *.xhtml their injected ads magically disappear.

Re:What about code validation?

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer is also oblivious to XHTML 1.1's existence, which means you'll be turning away the majority of your visitors (assuming typical demographics).

On the one hand...

On the one hand I'd be really annoyed* if my ISP did this to me, on the other hand maybe there are some people who wold prefer ads and a cheaper monthly fee?

And on the third hand... isn't this going to break a whole bunch of websites? I'm having a hard time imagining how they could do it without major side effects.

(* I'd be wanting to stuff a few ads up their HTTP stream, I can tell you)

Re:On the one hand...

And on the third hand... isn't this going to break a whole bunch of websites? I'm having a hard time imagining how they could do it without major side effects.

Don't worry, I'm sure it's been thoroughly tested with Internet Explorer.

Re:On the one hand...

From my experience (I've worked at and built enough ISPs) that even if they find a way to potentially reduce the customers cost per month (ie: through ads), they won't pass the savings to the customer - ever.

Why? Profit. It's a great motive.

I've seen this at least a year ago

http://wtanaka.com/node/62 [wtanaka.com]

It was especially annoying when the ad insertion code didn't quite work right and caused web pages to break.

I've known about this for a while...

When I worked at the helpdesk of a small ISP [dowco.com], we were approached by this company [adzilla.com] to see if we were interested in letting them test their ad-inserting proxy server on our customers. I protested that it was scummy and might lead to legal trouble (I was guessing) over changing pages in-flight, but my bosses didn't listen. That was back in 2002 or 2003, and I left shortly after to take another job. No idea what's going on there now.

I'm moving to a new ISP [uniserve.com] since my current one [www.shaw.ca] has started blocking port 25 in and out. I run my own mail server, so I appreciate that Uniserve's TOS [uniserve.com] explicitly allow servers (clause #19). However, they also explicitly say that they insert ads:

65. UNISERVE shall have the right, without notice, to insert advertising data into the Internet browser used by a UNSERVE customer, and transferred to a UNISERVE customer over UNISERVE's network, so long as this does not involve UNISERVE establishing the identity of the customer to whom such data is sent.

Needless to say I'm not happy about that, but in Vancouver my choices are limited: Telus (who'll censor web pages [thetyee.ca] if they belong to a union striking against them), Shaw, or a handful of small ADSL ISPs that all seem to be much the same. Uniserve seems the best of a bad bunch.

Re:I've known about this for a while...

However, they also explicitly say that they insert ads:

As a content provider, I didn't give them any licence to create derivative works. Creating versions of my pages with ads, is clearly creation of a derivative work.

But of course, it's much more important for copyright law to prevent me from copying a CD for a friend, then to prevent some large ISP from violating my moral rights [wikipedia.org] by whoring out my content.

Re:I've known about this for a while...

U.S. Copyright law is about a utilitarian bargain between content creators and content consumers - in exchange for creating the content, the creators are given a limited monopoly on certain actions. Moral rights don't really have a foundation in American law.

Belkin sucks!

One belkin ADSL modem actually did this. Every couple of days or couple of thousand port 80 request it displayed their ad instead.

They later issued a new firmware that disabled this. But not before I had issued them a "fuck off" feedback. I have never bought another belkin product since and I strongly urge no-one else to do so either. Fuck them.

Links to Belkins suckiness (Re:Belkin sucks! )

Belkin hardware sucks: http://www.google.fi/search?hl=fi&q=belkin+router+ adware [google.fi]

Yes I know their hardware sucks for other reasons also.

Opt Out Link

The company that runs the box the ISP installed provides an opt-out option. Go to this page [nebuad.com] and click opt-out.

I think their behavior with this product is reprehensible. Pass the link on to anyone you know who is affected and encourage them to call their ISP and complain every day until it's removed. If all their call center does is get complaints, they'll reconsider whether it's making them any money.

ISP comparisons need to note this

There needs to be a new column in all those ISP comparison charts ... so we get to see who the clean ISPs are.

Hit them where it hurts: right where people are deciding which ISP to go with.

Re:ISP comparisons need to note this

Hit them where it hurts: right where people are deciding which ISP to go with.

That only works if there is actual competition. In most large cities, customers have only two choices. They can go with cable modem service from Some Big Cable Company or DSL service from Some Big Telecom Company. Both usually suck. People living in smaller communities often have no choice at all.

Re:ISP comparisons need to note this

Ah, one way in which competition is better in the UK. You can be broadband off a cable company (if you subscribe) or over the British Telecom 'phone lines - in which case you have dozens of ISPs to choose from.

I may not often agree with Gordon Brown: but him objecting to Sarkozy's attempt to remove 'competition' as a basic tenet of the EU was 100% correct. Protectionism, in the long term, hurts all consumers.

Block the ads?

Wouldn't Firefox or Opera users easily be able to block these ads? Not that it matters much to the ISP, as I assume most of their users would be on IE, so they wouldn't be losing that many viewers.

Support Costs

I wonder if one could sue an ISP to recover costs associated with,

1. Support as a hosting provider to customers wondering why there's ads on their pages
2. Support as a website subscription provider to visitors who pay a subscription fee to have ads removed

Data corruption

This is one angle to pursue, you have requested a page and the page you receive has been altered by the proxy, therefore "corrupted" the data.

If this continues then someone can write a plugin for Firefox to stop the adverts.

Time to rebuild the freenets.

Back at the start of the net, many people started to build their own little networks (e.g. the "freenets", which existed long before freenet) and make connections with their neighbours. This activity was wiped out when ISPs started providing service at less than cost in order to build their business, making freenets not worth the investment. Now we are back at the stage where ISPs are trying to make money and messing up the service. It's time to restart building those networks and move off the commercial ISPs. Does anybody know any good places to start this? I'm ready to interconnect with my neighbours. How do we arrange sensible cheap long distance interconnectivity?

What about freenetworks.org [freenetworks.org]? Are Wifi Coops [wificoop.org] any good? Any others?

Copyright Bonanza

The content in my pages is copyright implicitly, even if I don't register or even declare it in the pages. The right my ISP has to copy it is only for the purpose of publishing it in the transaction I have explicitly permitted: publishing it on URL requests.

If my ISP copies it for any other purpose, like inserting ads, or copies it into (or as) some other context, like an ad page, it's violating my copyright.

Every copyright violation - every page - makes them liable for a fine. That can really stack up, and costs a lot more than each page view generates in ad revenue.

Unless I've signed away my copyright in some contract with the ISP. Which I personally haven't. Nor should you.

If you have retained your copyright, and your ISP violates it, you should look forward to them handing over their business ownership to pay the damages. Email your lawyer from your other account and get the ball rolling. Why should corporate copyright holders have all the fun?

How to take advantage of this

It would seem pretty straightforward to document uses of your website to sell ads, so that you could sue ISPs for copyright violation. This seems pretty straightforward to me.

1) Generate a unique id for every webpage transmitted. php's uniq() function would be fine. Embed it in the page.
2) Generate a checksum before transmitting the page. Save the id and the checksum, perhaps in a mysql database, when transmitting the page.
3) Embed a javascript that can compute the checksum of the document at the user's end. Have it transmit the checksum back to the server.
4) If the checksum doesn't match, have the javascript transmit the content of the page and it's headers, and perhaps even a traceroute, back to the server.
5) Server stores all of the above in a "pages corrupted in transmission" log.

Log analysis should then give you a list of ISPs who have consistently corrupted your pages, details on what they inserted, and documented # of violations with date and time. You can take this documentation to the court and say "Look! Earthlink/Megapath/AT&T/Whoever has illegally copied my website to market their own advertisements 12,432 times in the last year!". Demand remuneration.

6) Profit!
7) Reduce ISP's willingness to fsck with other people's content and thereby make the world a better place.

8) (Optionally) Have your own javascript strip their ad and/or put a banner at the top that notes "Your ISP has attempted to illegally insert their own advertising into our website, thereby making money off you and me without either of our permission. We strongly suggest you switch internet service providers." -- try to get user pressure on the ISP.

I'm about to head out on a 10-day vacation. When I get back, if one of y'all hasn't written this yet I'll start on it myself.

Re:How to take advantage of this

How about people like me who have the Adblock extension?

Of course, I also have Noscript, so I'd not even register in your scheme.

Copyright infringement

The customers of these asshole ISP's may not be able to stop them, but web site owners might. HTML code is frequently copyrighted. Injecting Javascript into a web page creates an unauthorized derivative work. Some webmaster needs to start sending DMCA takedown notices to ISP's using these ad injection proxies.

Phone service providers are doing this too

So if you mom is suddenly very excited on the phone about the latest washing powder or insists that you shave only with 5-blade Gillette for best results, you should know better.

There should be legal questions

These ISPs are modifying the content of another source. They alter the format or content or appearance of the requested data or information. Potentially, they endanger the quality of the service being provided on the other end. This is an offense against net neutrality.

Content providers who earn income from their own web activity should be among the first to file suit against these ISPs. I imagine network TV companies would be VERY offended if advertisments were inserted over, in or around their own presented material and web based business should be expected to have the same offense taken.

Smells to me...

...like a copyright infringment. The ISP takes the work, creates a derivate, then distributes that derivate to you. Clearly the page is distributed as a whole even though it's made up of parts, you'd certainly relate porn ads to a company if they appeared on that company's webpage which means it's absolutely not its own work. It's like a book club embedding ad pages in the books before shipping them to members.

Distribution is an exclusive right of the copyright holder.
That they change the content means all paragraph 512 limitations are out the window.
The fair use test (commercial, creative work, almost whole work (all the non-ad content), kills ad revenue) is a 0-4 slam dunk against.

So tell me exactly, what's protecting the ISP from an "allofmp3" style lawsuit for a few trillion, since every web page is a $150,000 lawsuit in itself? Whoever in the legal department who approved this should be terrified.

Go Somewhere Else?

Ok, mod me down for this if you will, but why not just vote with your feet and go to a different ISP?

In these days of webmail and portable email addresses/domain names, why don't more people do this? It's still a buyer's market, and there's still lots of mom-and-pop ISPs who'll be glad of your business.

All the talk of 'taking legal action' smacks to me as being what's typically wrong with the entire attitude of everyone today. Compensation culture and all that - where there's blame there's a claim.

Don't just stand for it!

Exercise your GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to stop using the offending ISP take your business elsewhere and.

Failing that, exercise your GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to walk into the ISP's main offices with an automatic shotgun.

I figure that either way, you're not gonna be using that ISP any longer.

Fair play.

We should start sending multi-page advertisements with our ISP payments embedded in the middle, to monetize the untapped revenue stream available when the ISPs want to get paid.

Ah, but there is a weakness

The assumption of the ISP is that the ads are rated "G".
Simply buy ads from their service that will offend all their
users.

The amazing health and psychological benefits of abortion
ought to do it. And at the bottom: This ad brought to you
by your friendly neighborhood ISP.

I don't think....

*Read small print* ...ISP not liable if they lose data...devil owns my soul for eternity...agree to have my details being sold to spammers...pretty standard stu.., no wait... own the rights to genes produced by me and any of my offspring in perpetuity... no not it either. Looks like I never agreed to this.

I'd sue, but the contract with my ISP waived that right.

Ads == harassment

Some time soon, we will cross the line where my opinion becomes a majority opinion: That any and all unasked for advertisement is harassment and should carry criminal penalties accordingly. Double the punishment if it masquerades as something else (i.e. fake grassroots campaigns, product placement, etc.)

Alternatively, lift all restrictions on advertisement. Then we'd at least have nude girls and hardcore porn on every wall and window, instead of beer and washing powder.

Huge privacy concerns.

Online advertising is fraught with privacy concerns as is. Do you really want your ISP, who has access to your home address and credit details, and potentially your entire browsing history and e-mail records, sharing this info with their advertisers?

This isn't just about plugging a banner into a page surreptitiously.

Who Me?

Isn't this like searching my mail and stamping an add on my birthday card? If they are smart about cost cutting get rid of the junk. I don't need your webspace, or your email, or your start page, or much of the other junk you provide. Give me net access like you used to.

Massive switch to https

Sites that don't like being screwed with might just switch to pure https.

Here is an how-to to help remove those ads

How to remove ads from Free webpage providers -> http://smog.cjb.net/html/adkill.htm [cjb.net]

Use a proxy...

Why not just run your internet through your own proxy and remove the ads? Sure, it may be a bit slower, but surely it could be done with something like Privoxy [privoxy.org] on top of Squid [squid-cache.org].

This happened to me 5 years ago

Actually it was a host and not an ISP, but without my consent, knowledge or permission, the turned my 404 page into some random spammy advertisement for some other company. They could not understand why I was mad (or maybe they could, but they would not admit it). I wish I could remember who they were so I could bad mouth them by name. Needless to say, I quit their service and never looked back.

Check for referral credit thievery too

Could somebody using one of these crooked ISPs check to see if they're rewriting referral links to sites like Amazon? I stayed at a hotel years ago which was stealing credits like this. It looke like Kazaa [lockergnome.com] was doing this too. The reason I bring it up is that, if they're scummy enough to inline ads, they're scummy enough to try this. And if they are trying it, it would seem like an easier lawsuit to win, because it's very clearly theft.

A new business niche for ASPs?

I am thinking that there likely will be a business niche for a provider called an ASP. Not an application service provider, but an anonymity service provider.

Anonymity not in the sense of a cryptographically secure Cypherpunks remailer or a TOR network, but protection from snooping from the local ISP that people are forced to use. Traffic from an ASP can still be logged, but for some ad site to track a person's web viewing habits for marketing purposes, they would have to snarf logs from both the ASP, and the origin ISP.

There are a couple places which offer SSL based proxying via stunnel, and I'm pretty sure one can use stunnel with most existing SSL based web proxying services. This is probably the best bet for general Web use, as stunnel can be easily installed as a Windows service, configured, and forgotten about after configuring the Web browser to use it.

Of course, one can use a full pptp/l2tp VPN, but the advantage of stunnel based proxying is that one doesn't have to worry about their VPN being up to do basic web stuff.

There are ads on webpages?

I've been using adblock and Remove It Permanently for so long, I just haven't seen any ads for a few years.

Illegal altering of my web pages

I have a commercial website. If my ISP would pull such a stunt I'd drag them by their cojones into court for defacing my pages and putting my end users at risk.

Where I live I have to put up a separate page (like in Germany) where I identify my company for being responsible for the content. Adding ads to my web page over which I have no control means that they have asserted control over my pages, and I can no longer exercise my responsibility for content. What if they serve a virus? What if they decide that porn pays better?

Nope - it would be court or police (unauthorised computer use) immediately. No BS, no delay and no mercy.

Having said that, I did notice on one system that I rarely get 404s now. Any unknown domain makes me end up at GoDaddy. Now, I don't have anything against GoDaddy but I prefer a 404 over crap ads, so I wonder where this came from. No matter, I'm about to nuke and rebuild my XP build anyway - I would just like to know where it came from.

BTW, there's also http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html [everythingisnt.com] to suppress all the other crap whilst surfing normally. The failure messages are very instructive as you discover just who is handing your details off to advertisers..

sounds like alawsuit waiting to happen

I could see some web site publisher visiting their web site and finding ads on the page that are not theirs and suing the ISP for changing their content, and also revenue on a page that should be theirs. Consider that many web publishers already are putting ads in pages, and probably testing to see how many ads they can put before the page load slows, only to have an ISP widen their load and make the site unusable.

I could also see a class action lawsuit against an ISP. If they are selling you 1.5Mbs, and not delivering that bandwidth and then injecting content that will slow your bandwidth even more, I'm sure some lawyer could come up with something about this.

All I have to say, is that this can't end good, but also, I think his could open the door for more need of filtering proxy/firewalls. Instead of just a netgear router/firewall, you would have a ad filtering proxy in there, that you could configure.

History ...

Some Canadian ISPs at least have been doing this for years, in a more limited fashion. A friend of mine complained that he was getting banner ads inserted into Google and Yahoo search results pages (and while Google does put ads into their search results, they are not graphical banners) about 5 years ago. Looking at the code for the ad, it was easy to see that it referred to the name of his ISP ...

Given the price wars between ISPs, the fact that other providers are also doing this would be no surprise at all.

I don't believe this for one minute...

I don't (buy Enzyte! Feel like a MAN! [enzyte.com]) believe that this kind (Get your ULTRA LOW COST HOSTING here! [2mhost.com]) of advertising actually (Your computer may be infected! Click here for a free scan! [pandasoftware.com]) exists...

Remember "free" dial-up?

Reminds me of the mid-late '90s when a series of 'free internet' dial-up providers emerged (meaning no financial cost) If you didn't mind a 3rd of the screen real estate being taken up by various ads it was okay, (that was 800x600 days). I think it was a specialized browser or something. I helped a friend sign up to it who just needed to check his email, and I remember the whole thing just really sucked because the already-slow dial-up connection had to download lots of graphical ads making it an even slower experience. You know the old adage: you get what you pay for. At one point the Petro Canada gas stations were giving out free CDs containing this software as a promotion. I don't think it was ever widely used and lasted for only a very brief time but somebody made a heck of a lot of money from it. I'm sure that was the intent from the start, to cash out, because the product wasn't really feasible beyond the initial 'free' pitch.

Kiddie Porn

If they are creating derivative works, then there could be more serious implications than violation of copyright. AFAIK At the moment ISPs in the US are exempt from being done for any kiddie porn that is sent over their lines cos they are just a transparent carrier, they aren't meant to change the content, and in return they are protected from liability for any illegal kiddie porn or oter illegal stuff sent over their lines. or something like that. If their proxy downloads the page, and rewrites it then sends the rewritten page, are they then republishing that page. So if they rewrite a page full of kiddie porn, and then send their own rewritten page to someone, are they not publishing and distributing that kiddie porn, and there fore can be done as kiddie porn distributors?

Comcast inserts local ads on carried TV channels

Comcast inserts local ads on TV channels. But at least they are permitted to do that with the channel producer's permission. In the case of national networks that are optional to carry, this might be part of the contact that have to get that channel carried (reduced rates the producer has to pay, or higher rates Comcast pays, depending on which channel). With over the air stations that they must carry, the station has to get part of that revenue to go along with it (which in theory helps pay the cost of station operation and program sources just like the station ads do). I see nothing wrong with it because the content provider gets some benefit (revenue or carriage) from it, as long as the program content itself is not covered up (which my local Comcast was doing accidentally for a week, once, due to some misprogrammed computer).

However, if the providers of content are not a party to this process, then I do see some serious legal issues, including copyright, with it.

We need to have more web sites make the switch to HTTPS and do redirects from their HTTP to go to their HTTPS sites.

im in ur pages

ensertin sum adz

Pigs Can Fly

Actually, my friend had an anti-virus system that worked via proxy (his server downloads the content, then scans it, then serves it to the end users), which would replace a website's ads with his own. (It was totally sketchy!) His algorithm to determine if a site was a porn site screwed up a few times though, so people got porn ads on non-porn sites.

Names of ISPs doing this

With a little searching, I found two ISPs doing this right off the bat:

gator-isp.com
bonzai-isp-buddy.com

 

Experienced this

Around 2003-2004 I subscribed to a Vancouver-area ISP named MDI Internet, and near the end of my term with them they implemented software called Adzila, which worked as described in the article. Here's an example of an ad it inserted on Google search results:

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/5052/adzilabann erae1.png [imageshack.us]

they use the law

against the content provider copyright law is an asshole animal disguised to screw everyone involved except huge corporations. #1 anyone can collect damages #2 if your site is truely copyrighted you can collect statutory damages and attorney fees #3 if you rely on inherant copyright all you can collect is ACTUAL damages and must pay your own attorney fees and even if you win you WILL NOT be awarded any more than actual damages. giving this: how the fuck will the average joe get anywhere without just giving away 10K to some fuckhead attorney just to get the ads removed so you can get $0.015 per page view awarded as actual damages. the ISP's are laughing at congress and the copyright office all the way to the bank. Whereupon they quit laughing and spend your money with a big shit eating grin on thier smug fat faces.

Contact the Grateful Dead!

STATEMENT TO MP3 SITE OPERATORS
The Grateful Dead and our managing organizations have long encouraged the purely non-commercial exchange of music taped at our concerts and those of our individual members. That a new medium of distribution has arisen - digital audio files being traded over the Internet - does not change our policy in this regard. Our stipulations regarding digital distribution are merely extensions of those long-standing principles and they are as follow:

No commercial gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means.
All participants in such digital exchange acknowledge and respect the copyrights of the performers, writers and publishers of the music.
This notice should be clearly posted on all sites engaged in this activity.
We reserve the ability to withdraw our sanction of non-commercial digital music should circumstances arise that compromise our ability to protect and steward the integrity of our work.

(Emphasis mine.)

If these companies are injecting ads into sites containing the Grateful Dead's non-commercial material, then they are illegally profiting from the Grateful Dead's copyrighted works, and both the Grateful Dead organization and various site owners who are suddenly at risk (such as the Internet Archive [archive.org]) may have the basis for a lawsuit. (The Archive is non-profit, but fairly well funded.)

As a website owner....

...This is infuriating and a little frightening. Not only are they junking up my webpage and possibly offending my readership(with the content of the ads) but they are leaving my readers with the impression that I'm behind it all! If I was the owner of a Christian chat site and they inserted a "Wanna hook up?" style dating ad I would be mortified.

But what really worries me is what else are they doing with this technology? Could they programmatically swap out my Adsense Publisher ID with theirs? Could they change the links on my homepage to point to their spam sites? Could they put words in my mouth e.g. my readers suddenly find me favorably reviewing "Male Enhancement" products on my homepage?

site has been added to the list.

Site has been added to list, any more examples type of advertisement would be handy

turn it off with this...

http://www.mysecureisp.com/ [mysecureisp.com]

it bypasses your ISPs proxy.

In the long run..

..anything that encourages websites and users to start using https instead of http, is a good thing.

Adblock

Adblock will take care of these too :)

Re:2nd level firehose?

I thought that as I read the linked articles.

How did a crap story like this get onto the front page of slashdot?

Re:As this is coming from a hardware box

Are you an idiot or did you just fall off the turnip truck? You don't see MAC addresses unless you're on the same LAN.

That being said, is there any sort of signature by which content providers could identify requests from one of these poxy boxes and block or otherwise sabotage the unauthorized insertions?