Charter's web monitoring plans may be illegal

A story at CNET News.com, Web monitoring for ads? It may be illegal talks about the legality of Charter's plans for monitoring every customers internet activity.

From the story:
The problem for broadband providers is that intercepting customers' Web browsing, analyzing the protocols to see what's going on, and reviewing the packets' contents starts to look a lot like wiretapping. And there are federal and state laws, complete with civil and criminal sanctions, that broadly prohibit wiretapping.

"I think Congressman (Edward) Markey is exactly right to raise this issue. The implications here are profound...Do (broadband providers) think they own that data? If they own that data, there are no limits on what can be done with it? Can they give it to an employer? Can they give it to a credit bureau? Can they give it to a potential landlord?"

For more background info about Chater's monitoring plans see Charter is watching you and Reps. Markey & Barton to Charter: please pause plans to sell customer browsing habits