October 10th, 2008
ISP snoops slink away: Adzilla quits US market
The bottom is falling out of the market for spying on Internet users. Adzilla says it is leaving the North American market to focus on a part of the world with a seemingly limitless appetite for snooping – Asia.
Adzilla’s home page says:
We have stepped out for a little… to develop new solutions and services to delight users and enhance the online ecosystem experience.
In the New York Times, Saul Hansell reports on a phone call with ousted CEO Toby Grabiner, who said:
It’s not like I didn’t know that privacy was a potential third rail. None of us saw that it would become this much of an issue this quickly.
It was Congressional interest in the new market segment – especially NebuAd — that led to the melt-down.
The threat of legislation got [ISPs] all freaked out. They said, ‘We can only battle on so many fronts, and we don’t want to have a massive consumer backlash on privacy.’ ”
Meanwhile, MediaPost notes, NebuAd is delaying any further rollouts of its user-snooping technology until Congress finishes looking at the issue.
In the UK, the British government has approved BT’s trials of Phorm, but the European Union has serious reservations, says the Register.
