Inspired by a thread on IMHO re: private investigators.
I read an article in Time or Newsweek a few years ago that said that ISP’s keep a detailed history of the surfing habits of each client–and that said history can be obtained by some officials.
I suppose everyone would claim as much, but I truly have nothing to hide in my surfing habits and I have no relationship conflicts, yada, yada, yada.
That being said, I value my privacy and detest invasions thereof(just as I do with my record of borrowing at libraries) and therefore mentioned this article’s claim to someone at MSN’s tech support line and he said something like, “Do you know how huge our database would have to be to keep record of the comings and goings of every single account?” IOW, he said they purge that info every now and then.
What is the straight dope on record-keeping among ISPs, such as MSN?
Keeping a surfing history of each customer would be an enormous task. I would think they do not do it on a detailed basis because of all the storage it would use up. They know where their customers surf to but probably not where each person goes. But maybe I’m wrong on that.
Speaking as an admin of a smaller ISP, we kept zero records of websites users accessed.
If you used our DNS server, and you accessed a website like “dirtybits.com”, that domain would appear in our DNS cache but we had no records of how the site got there (IE: What user went to that domain)
The only info we logged was:
The time you signed in/out.
What IP address was assigned to you.
E-mail activity. We didn’t keep copies of e-mail you send, only when you sent it and where. This data was scanned weekly for spam related activity, then deleted.
If you’re in the States, you might want to ask if your ISP has a Carnivore box on site. They store info on e-mail and other web traffic for late use by the FBI. Some people don’t like this.
(More info at slashdot.)
Logistically, (as Seven says) your ISP doesn’t want/need any information about you beyond the essential. They’ll have stored all your incoming/outgoing e-mail on their server for as long as it takes to be delivered, and likely keep track of the number of packets sent if you’re on a cable modem or otherwise have metered access. Any more information would be unwieldy to store and search, and would have no use for them to boot.
Speaking as a person who has pursued charges against a person engaging in criminal harassment and stalking of myself, I can tell you that it “varies”. Some keep no records at all, others only keep track of IP assignments to accounts (login/logout/IP/account holder), and others amass terabytes of complete logs.
I’ve also found that, if you make your case well, many Admins will let slip some log info too, without getting the lawyers involved. You just have to ask the right way.