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About Parasites

A web Parasite is a new type of spyware, installed by Internet Service Providers, that can 'see the entire internet'.

Some people call them Illegal Interceptions, ISP Spyware, Content Thieves, or even Cockroaches (*see note below) .

According to Wikipedia, Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species in which one, the Parasite, benefits from a prolonged, close association with the other, the host, which is harmed. Parasitic organisms reduce host fitness through general or specialized pathology, impairment of characteristics, or the modification of host behaviour. Parasites increase their fitness by exploiting hosts for habitat and dispersal. Hosts may actively try to avoid, repel and destroy parasites.

Which seems quite a good summary of web Parasite characteristics too. So we will stick to the term Parasites.

Parasitic advertising systems are already deployed by some ISPs, and are inadvertently installed by some end-users in exchange for free software such as adware, spyware, root-kits and trojans. Interstitial advertising has also been included in consumer grade routers.

Future Development of Parasites

It is anticipated (now that a precedent has been set by ISPs) other participants in the communication value chain will also deploy their own parasitic advertising systems to profit from the data they transport.

Soon, all links in the communication network will be able to 'enhance' the end user experience by modifying web pages, or injecting interstitial pages into the data stream  - all micro-targeted to the user's interests.

Deployers of Parasitic systems could include ISPs, internet exchanges, consumer and commercial networking equipment manufacturers, internet transport providers, wholesale service providers, hosting services, server software, browser developers, and root-kits installed on the end users PC.

As the number of Parasites modifying page content en route to the end-user increases, a perceived excess of advertising may result. Still worse, if advertising such as pop-up and interstitial pages have compound advertising inserted within them by successive parasitic systems, this may cause the advertiser’s message to become highly confusing to end-users. Simplistic behavioural targetting systems might even conclude, via keyword analysis, that end-users have an obsessive interest in viewing advertisements.

Fig. 1 Comparison, Network Neutrality and Network Parasite Neutrality

To prevent this competitive 'meltdown' scenario occurring, it is likely that a 'slave market' will be established. Parasites will be able to bid against one another for the exclusive right to exploit content, the losing bidders will share the fee paid by the winner. As a concession to Website owners, they may also be permitted to bid for the right to communicate freely, or buy back their rights for a monthly 'protection fee'.

Fig.2 Content 'Slave Market'

The precise details of how (or if) such an auction system would work are beyond the scope of this document.

Note: Parasites.txt and Parasites meta tags within the content must not be modified by parasitic systems, unless they are sure that they can get away with it. It is only fair that all parasitic providers relaying a website’s content to the end-user should benefit equally by processing and modifying it, a concept called 'Network Parasite Neutrality'.

Parasite Inclusion

These pages have full details of the revolutionary Parasites inclusion protocol, and other relevant information;

* this description is unfair to cockroaches, technically cockroaches are scavengers not parasites.