Analysis: AT&T slams Google; House privacy debate heats up

Diving deeper into AT&T’s response, the crux of AT&T’s position becomes even clearer, with AT&T noting "advertising network operators such as Google have evolved beyond merely tracking consumer Web surfing activity on sites for which they have a direct ad-serving relationship. They now have the ability to observe a user's entire Web browsing experience at a granular level, including all URLs visited, all searches and actual page-views," AT&T wrote, criticizing such practices as “highly invisible “ and raising “greater privacy concerns.

The point, said AT&T, is that “ad networks and other non-ISPs employ these methodologies at the individual browser or computer level, and they are as effective as any technique that an ISP might employ at creating specific customer profiles and enabling highly targeted advertising."

AT&T continued: “If anything, the largely invisible practices of ad-networks raise even greater privacy concerns than do the behavioral advertising techniques that ISPs could employ, such as deep-packet-inspection, which have primary application beyond mere targeted advertising, including managing network congestion, detecting viruses and combating child pornography.

Google probably guaranteed a direct response from the telecom industry by focusing its letter so explicitly on network-based DPI, noting that it does not use DPI technology and noting in its response that “we understand that many of the questions that you have posed to us and a number of other companies stem from concerns about that particular model for online advertising.”

For its part, AT&T – like all of the companies responding to the request for information – said it did not currently use behavioral targeting to deliver online advertising. It did note, however, that it continues to evaluate the use of such technology, saying it would only deploy it in ways consistent with its existing “opt-in”-based privacy policies. Deployed in that way, behavioral ad targeting “could prove quite valuable to consumers and could dramatically improve their online experiences, while at the same time protecting their privacy,” AT&T said.