IPUrbia

An interesting patent–although by no means novel–that I came across that has some interesting implications for the future of the Internet: dynamic ad insertion by transparent proxies. This is, of course, trivial to anyone who is remotely competent with squid, which is sometimes used to simply remove ads.

In a lot of ways, I’m vaguely surprised that ads are still generally left intact downstream from the content provider. Not that I’m condoning hijacking ads–the practice is/would be more than a bit unethical in my book, but so is a number of other practices common in telecom by the ILECS and cable MSOs. Simply put, there is a lot of potential revenue for last mile providers tired of content providers getting a free ride on their pipes. I do realize the potential litigation nightmare–advertising and content use is a tricky issue–but, judging by the lack of lawsuits against ad-blockers and such, this might actually be able to slip by.

Again, I’m not in any way condoning this–an Internet where the ISP replaces all of the ads on the site you are viewing with their own advertisements pretty much kills the advertising-supported model that is the backbone of the current Internet economy. I think, however, that it is perhaps just a matter of time before a company heads down this route and, with the FCC giving transit providers carte-blanche jurisdiction over content carried on their networks–the content providers would probably not get a lot of support from the current administration. Yet another reason why Net Neutrality is a must for a viable Internet economy.