ISP data collection
Hurricane Electric establishes carrier neutral PoP at Lincoln Data Centers, Nebraska
Fremont, CA headquartered Hurricane Electric is a leading Internet backbone [1.] and colocation provider specializing in colocation, dedicated servers, direct Internet connections and web hosting. Hurricane Electric operates its own global network, running multiple OC192s, OC48s and Gigabit Ethernet. The ISP offer the following services:
- IP Transit [2.]: Wholesale internet connectivity ranging from 100 Mbps to massive network speeds over IPv4 and IPv6.
- Colocation: Physical rack and cabinet space in their carrier-neutral data centers (primarily in Fremont and San Jose, California) for customer-owned servers.
- Dedicated Servers: Single-tenant servers for businesses seeking dedicated safety, hardware, and performance.
- Web Hosting: Virtual hosting accounts for running and maintaining websites.
Note 1. Hurricane Electric claims to have the world’s largest IPv6-native Internet backbone. President Mike Leber founded Hurricane Electric in a garage in 1994. Hurricane Electric now operates an international backbone network and owns several datacenters, including a new 200,000 square-foot Fremont 2 colocation facility.
Note 2. IP transit is a commercial, wholesale service where an upstream Internet Service Provider (ISP) allows network traffic to travel through its backbone infrastructure to reach the rest of the global internet
Image Credit: Hurricane Electric
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Today, the company announced that it has established a new Point of Presence (PoP) at Lincoln Data Centers. The new PoP is located at 206 South 13th Street, Lincoln NE.
Lincoln Data Centers provides a carrier-neutral interconnection and colocation environment purpose-built for organizations with expanding connectivity requirements. The facility combines diverse fiber infrastructure, access to regional and long-haul carriers, low-friction interconnection through meet-me-room capabilities, and flexible deployment options that support scalable growth. Positioned in the geographic center of the United States, Lincoln Data Centers serves as an efficient regional hub for enterprises, cloud platforms, content providers, and network operators seeking resilient, low-latency connectivity across the Midwest and beyond.
The central United States continues to play an increasingly important role in digital infrastructure development due to its geographic advantages, expanding fiber ecosystems, growing enterprise technology adoption, and proximity to major population and business centers. Nebraska’s favorable business environment and central location make Lincoln an attractive market for organizations seeking resilient, low-latency connectivity and diversified network routes.
The new PoP improves fault tolerance, load balancing, and congestion management for next-generation IP connectivity services throughout the region. Customers of Lincoln Data Centers can now access Hurricane Electric’s extensive IPv4 and IPv6 backbone through 100GE (100 Gigabit Ethernet), 10GE (10 Gigabit Ethernet), and GigE (1 Gigabit Ethernet) ports.
“We are pleased to expand Hurricane Electric’s presence in the Midwest with this new Point of Presence at Lincoln Data Centers,” said Mike Leber, President of Hurricane Electric. “Lincoln’s central location, strong business climate, and growing digital infrastructure ecosystem make it an ideal site to support customers requiring reliable, high-capacity Internet connectivity across the region.”
With this deployment, organizations in and around Lincoln can exchange IP traffic directly with Hurricane Electric’s vast global network, which supports more than 40,000 BGP sessions with over 10,500 networks across more than 320 major exchange points worldwide.
The addition of this PoP reflects Hurricane Electric’s ongoing investment in expanding connectivity throughout North America and its commitment to delivering low-latency, highly resilient Internet connectivity for enterprises, cloud providers, research institutions, content platforms, and service providers.
About Hurricane Electric:
Fremont, California-based Hurricane Electric operates its own global IPv4 and IPv6 network and is considered the largest IPv6 backbone in the world. Within its global network, Hurricane Electric is connected to more than 320 major exchange points and exchanges traffic directly with more than 10,500 different networks. Employing a resilient fiber-optic topology, Hurricane Electric has five redundant 100G paths crossing North America, four separate 100G paths between the U.S. and Europe, and 100G rings in Europe, Australia and Asia. Hurricane also has a ring around Africa, and a PoP in Auckland, NZ. Hurricane Electric offers IPv4 and IPv6 transit solutions over the same connection. Connection speeds available include 100GE (100 gigabits/second), 10GE, and gigabit ethernet. Additional information can be found at http://he.net.
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FTC Staff Report Finds Many ISPs Collect Troves of Personal Data while Consumers Have No Options
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) staff report released on Thursday, October 21st found that a group of broadband Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast and Verizon, collect troves of personal data, and that consumers don’t have much choice on how that data is used.
Question to Ponder: Haven’t we all intuitively known that, just like Big Tech (Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) our privacy has been compromised by ISPs in return for “free services,” whereby our personal information is sold to “target advertisers?”
The report was approved unanimously 4-1 by the commission, with FTC chair Lina Khan issuing a separate statement. Khan said the FTC report highlighted:
1) Problems with the notice-and-consent framework for data collection and sharing;
2) The expansion of ISPs into vertically integrated businesses including ones providing content for their broadband “pipes”; and
3) The potential use of “hyper-granular” online dossiers to discriminate against users.
Many ISPs collect and share far more data about their customers than many consumers may expect—including access to all of their Internet traffic and real-time location data—while failing to offer consumers meaningful choices about how this data can be used, according to an FTC staff report on ISPs’ data collection and use practices.
The staff report, which details the expanding scope and some troubling aspects of some ISP data collection practices, stems from orders the FTC issued in 2019 using its authority under 6(b) of the FTC Act to six internet service providers, which make up about 98 percent of the mobile Internet market:
- AT&T Mobility LLC;
- Cellco Partnership, which does business as Verizon Wireless;
- Charter Communications Operating LLC;
- Comcast Cable Communications, which does business as Xfinity;
- T-Mobile US Inc.; and
- Google Fiber Inc.
The FTC also issued orders to three advertising entities affiliated with these ISPs: AT&T’s Appnexus Inc., rebranded as Xandr; Verizon’s Verizon Online LLC; and Oath Americas Inc., rebranded as Verizon Media. The FTC sought information on their data collection and use practices, as well as any tools provided to consumers to control these practices.
As noted in the report, these companies have evolved into technology giants who offer not just internet services but also provide a range of other services including voice, content, smart devices, advertising, and analytics—which has increased the volume of information they are capable of collecting about their customers. The report identified several troubling data collection practices among several of the ISPs, including that they combine data across product lines; combine personal, app usage, and web browsing data to target ads; place consumers into sensitive categories such as by race and sexual orientation; and share real-time location data with third-parties.
At the same time, the report found the privacy protections many of the companies offer raised several concerns. Even though several of the ISPs promise not to sell consumers personal data, they allow it to be used, transferred, and monetized by others and hide disclosures about such practices in fine print of their privacy policies. For example, several news outlets noted that subscribers’ real-time location data shared with third-party customers was being accessed by car salesmen, property managers, bail bondsmen, bounty hunters, and others without reasonable protections or consumers’ knowledge and consent, according to the report.
Many of the ISPs also claim to offer consumers choices about how their data is used and allow them to access such data. The FTC found, however, that many of these companies often make it difficult for consumers to exercise such choices and sometimes even nudge them to share even more information. In addition, while several of the ISPs promise to only keep the data for as long as needed for business purposes, the definition of what constitutes a “business purpose” varies widely among the companies.
The FTC report also found that ISPs use web browsing data and group consumers using “sensitive characteristics such as race and sexual orientation.”
The report concludes that many of the ISPs’ data collection and use practices mirror problems identified in other industries and underscore the importance of restricting data collection and use.
The Commission voted 4-0 to approve and issue the report. Staff presented findings from the report at today’s open virtual Commission meeting. Chair Lina M. Khan issued a separate statementon the report.
Cable Industry Response from the NCTA:
The report drew a sharp rebuke from the cable industry (as represented by the NCTA — The Internet & Television Association), maintaining that it provided a “highly distorted view” that casts them in the same arena as aggressive “Big Tech platforms” which are well known to compromise users privacy via data collected and sold to advertisers.
The NCTA said in a October 21st statement:
The FTC’s report provides a highly distorted view of ISP data collection policies and inappropriately attempts to lump broadband providers into the same category as the Big Tech platforms.
Cable broadband providers take seriously their responsibility to safeguard the personal information of their customers and do not surveil their customers or sell their location data. Viewed objectively, today’s presentation is a broad attack on online advertising generally, not specific ISP actions. And what is further missing from today’s report is the much larger story about Big Tech platforms that are premised on maximizing user attention.
What is needed is a consistent set of privacy rules across the online marketplace on a technology-neutral basis. We look forward to continued engagement with policymakers to forge a strong, consistent framework for privacy protection.
–>What will come of the FTC staff report is not entirely clear. FTC chair Lina Khan said it would be part of an “ongoing conversation” about privacy and data practices that could be “incorporated” into FTC action, according to Multichannel News.
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FTC Boilerplate Text:
The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition and to protect and educate consumers. You can learn more about consumer topics and file a consumer complaint online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357). For the latest news and resources, follow the FTC on social media, subscribe to press releases and read our blogs.
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Separately, Politico reported that tech and telecom companies were among the top 20 spenders for the third quarter of 2021, according to a ranking of lobbying expenditures compiled by POLITICO Influence. Facebook was No. 5 at $5.1 million, with Amazon right behind it with $4.7 million. NCTA — The Internet & Television Association ranked 15th, spending $3.3 million, and Comcast was 18th, with $3.1 million.
