Opt-Out's Don't Work - Proof

NebuAd, Inc., provides monitoring of websurfing so that an ISP can provide targeted advertising to its clients. Six of the smaller ISPs reported the following results:

• Bresnan Communications - 18 people opted out of the trial out of 6000 participants
• Cable One - 14000 customers, no specific notice, no opt outs
• CenturyTel - 82 opt outs, 20000 affected subscribers
• Embarq Corp. - 15 out outs with 26000 participants
• Knology - unknown
• WideOpenWest - 330000 customers and 3,355 out-outs, though many from the same customer

All these companies did suspend the trial and testing because of privacy and related issues.

I think these numbers are quite telling on how effective the out-out strategy really is. With those number of opt-outs, I question how many people were really informed of the intrusion into their privacy they faced.