Congress looks at next-gen ad networks

"For years, Web sites have entered into agreements with advertising networks to use 'cookies' to track individual users across Web sites in order to compile profiles, the CDT wrote in a report issued Tuesday. "This approach has always been, and remains, a source of privacy concern, in part because the conduct usually occurs unbeknownst to most Internet users. Recent dcevelopments, including the mergers between online service providers and some of the largest online advertising netweorks, have heightened those concerns."

The concern is that in the NebuAd model, ad networks copy the contents of an ISP's traffic streams, analyze usage and serve up ads to individual users based on traffic patterns.

"It seems that the disclosure of a subscriber's communications is prohibited without consent. In addition, especially where the copying is achieved by a device owned or controlled by the advertising network, the copying of the contents of subscriper communications seems to be, in the absence of consent, a prohibited interception," according to the report. "Affirmative express consent, and a cessation of copying upon withdrawal of consent, would probably save such practices under fedral law, but there may be state laws requiring all-party consent that would be more difficult to satisfy."