NebuAd loses CEO Dykes

Dan O'Shea — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 09:22:25 -0400

NebuAd's CEO Bob Dykes has left the company to become chief financial officer at VeriFone. Dykes was the company's primary defender as Congress took aim at carrier trials of its Web tracking technology in recent months. Dykes also was once CFO at Juniper Networks. COO Kira Makagon is slated to become NebuAd's new CEO, and the company is said to be trying out new business model ideas.

Yesterday, the USA Today carried an Associated Press story examining how the company's business opportunity has all but dissolved. Was the timing all wrong for a system that tracked Web surfer habits, or was this technology just a natural evolution of where advertising has been had headed for a long time? To me, it still seems like the biggest thing wrong with NebuAd is not the company or the technology itself, but how unclear and secretive service providers have been about their use of the technology.

For more:
- see this paidContent.org post at The Washington Post
- read this post at GigaOM
- see this Associated Press story at USA Today

Are Embarq & CenturyTel still tracking subscriber Web use?

Jim O'Neill — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:52:02 -0400

Are Embarq & CenturyTel still tracking subscriber Web use?

Charter Communications Tuesday said it had dropped its plans to test online advertising company NebuAd’s web-use tracking technology because of concerns raised by its customers. But two telcos that recently competed the testing are on the fence as to whether they plan on moving forward with web tracking programs.

"We are not currently using behavioral targeting tools and have not decided whether to move forward with them, either through NebuAd or with any other vendor," said Embarq spokeswoman Debra Peterson.

CenturtyTel spokesman Tony Davis, said it was his understanding that the reaction to Charter's proposed test had to do with cable industry regulations that don't apply to a phone company, saying "At this point it's not affecting our thinking.”

NebuAd collects data on Web users’ interests by tracking the sites they visit, passing it along to online advertising companies so they can display more relevant ads on Web sites.

Charter’s plan drew fire from privacy advocates and forced them to drop the program.

For more:
- See the Associated Press story

Related articles:
Congressmen ask Charter to delay snooping plan Charter report
Charter drops plan to track web usage Charter web tracking story

Tracking Technology

NebuAd loses CEO Dykes

Are Embarq & CenturyTel still tracking subscriber Web use?