Juno Wants Your Brain

N E W   Y O R K, Feb. 2 -- Juno Online Services Inc. may require subscribers of its free Internet service to give up additional control of their computers, prompting complaints about privacy and security risks.

Juno, which now compels those users to view ads and sharemarketing data, wants to raise additional revenues by sellingunused processing power from subscribers’ computers to researchinstitutions and corporations.

In such a scenario, Juno software would run whenever subscribersleave their computers idle for a given period of time. The softwarewould operate much like a screen saver and halt when the subscriberresumes computer use.

New terms posted on Juno’s Web site in recent weeks andpublicized by the company on Thursday give Juno the right torequire new and existing free Internet subscribers to leavecomputers on around the clock.

A user’s computer could even be programmed by Juno’s software toautomatically call Juno’s systems with computational results if theuser does not access the service frequently enough.

Users would have to pay for electricity, computer maintenanceand in some cases long-distance telephone charges. Juno and itspartners would keep any profits if the computations generateanything of commercial value.

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Richard Smith, chief technology officer for the PrivacyFoundation, has qualms about opening up computers this way: “Howdo I know somebody isn’t messing with my data?”

“I have concerns about how well their customers will be awareof what’s going on,” he added.

In announcing the Juno Virtual Supercomputer Network initiativeThursday, chief executive Charles E. Ardai called it “a way toderive new forms of revenue from assets we already have.“‘

Purveyors of free Internet access have struggled as revenuesfrom online ads dwindle.

In December, online search portal AltaVista cut off some 3million users from its free service. NetZero, Juno andBlueLight.com are the only major free services remaining, and Junohopes to remain so. But the company has yet to show a profit.