Bell Canada To Collect User Data For Advertising 127
beerdragoon writes "One of Canada's biggest mobile and TV providers will soon begin collecting detailed information on usage patterns of its subscribers. Starting November 16th, Bell plans on using this information to provide targeted ads for subscribers. According to Bell this policy will allow customers 'to receive Internet advertising that's relevant to them rather than the random online advertising they're receiving now.' Customers have until the 16th to opt out of the targeted ads, but there doesn't appear to be a way to opt out of the data collection. Apparently this is not illegal, but it is certainly considered unethical by many."
Re:Then users will switch to their competitors... (Score:5, Informative)
What competitors? I switched from bell to teksavvy and 9 out of 10 people I know had no idea it even existed. Even after switching I'm still at the mercy of cogeco because they own the lines around here. When there is a service interruption cogeco, rogers and bell make sure that teksavvy customers are the last to get their service back.
Re:The Land Of The Negative Option (Score:5, Informative)
You can't opt out of the monitoring and profiling.
You can only opt out of ad delivery.
Yes, it's that evil.
Re:Canadians: Complain to the Privacy Comissioner (Score:4, Informative)
I checked when I got the notice the other day. You can't opt out of the ads. You have two buttons you can click:
- I want Random ads
- I want target ads
There is no:
- I don't want ads
button.
Re:If you don't like it (Score:4, Informative)
Actually Bell / Rogers has 24 hours to fix it once it's gone up from the ISP and they usually do quicker than that.
Actually according to the TPIA agreements that most of the other ISP's have it's 48 hours, in fact it got so bad not all that long ago that the delays for repairs from Tek to Rogers were in the 7 day range. CNOC has recently filed with the CRTC to fix the TPIA issues and issues to repair, as well as long ticket repair delays. And this is happening across the spectrum, not just with Tek, or Velcom, or Start, but everyone DSL and cable, and getting screwed over.
If you're Canadian, you should write a letter to the CRTC. Information on it can be found here. [dslreports.com]
Myself, I've been with Tek back in Ontario for 3 years. I had one two day outage thanks to rogers breaking the routing tables, while doing a node update. Tek gave me the two days back discounted, I'm out in Alberta until December doing a deployment for a small town and the only thing I can get here is LTE for internet, because Telus refuses to upgrade the number of ports available. As a fun point, that's been on-going for 4 years, if you move in this city--you can't move your DSL with you either.
Looks like they're already on it (Score:5, Informative)
According to CBC, the privacy commissioner is Already Starting an Investigation [www.cbc.ca]
Re:Bell Canada is owned by the Teachers Pension Fu (Score:4, Informative)
As for Teachers pension plan their holdings are now below $100MM (well, they dont show up on their reports for positions > 100MM http://www.otpp.com/investments/essentials/major-investments [otpp.com])
Perhaps you are thinking of the failed attempt to take them public years ago?
PS: I'm an "owner" of BCE as I've held a position for many years.
Nice conspiracy theory, next time spend a minute or two to validate.