Copyright Law

Rogers Again Injects Web Pages With Its Own Content

By Michael Geist

Canadian Internet watchers may recall a controversy in late 2007 when Rogers began experimenting with adding its own content to webpages that its subscribers visit.  The company used the technology alert customers about their data usage.  Google was one of the targets of the experiments and the company reacted angrily:

We are concerned about these reports. As a general principle, we believe that maintaining the Internet as a neutral platform means that carriers shouldn't be able to interfere with Web content without users' permission. We are in the process of contacting the relevant parties to bring this to a quick resolution.

According to one of my blog readers, the Rogers content substitution approach is back. The image below shows Rogers warning a customer about the expiry of some parental controls.  The warning is included in a Flickr page.  This approach again raises concerns about Rogers interfering with the delivery of content without permission of the end user.  When combined with its ongoing policy of redirecting web pages that do not resolve to a company-sponsored paid search page, Rogers own content seems to show up unasked on a regular basis.

From Net Neutrality

Full post as published by Michael Geist on June 26, 2009 (boomark / email).