Big Brother isn’t just a problem in “repressive” regimes:
Telecommunications executives told the US Senate Commerce Committee [official website] Thursday that their companies would refrain from using certain surveillance technology without users’ permission but stopped short of endorsing legislation to outlaw the practice. The committee hearing [materials] to investigate the privacy practices of American Internet service providers (ISPs) focused on deep packet inspection (DPI) [Securityfocus.com backgrounder], a technique of compiling information about users’ browsing and online behavior for security and advertising purposes, generally without consent.
It’s time for Western societies to discuss the influence of web companies in monitoring our lives.