Spectrum is the consumer brand of Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHTR), the second-largest US cable ISP. Charter was one of six ISPs in the FTC's 2021 6(b) report, which found the group collects and combines browsing data, TV viewing history, connected-device data, and location beyond service needs. Its ad-sales arm, Spectrum Reach, runs a proprietary platform on set-top box viewership data (described as anonymized and aggregated), markets 1,000+ addressable segments built from 30 million households plus 70+ third-party data partners, and enables household-addressable ads for outside networks. The My Spectrum app's Apple privacy label declares data used to track users across other companies' apps and websites. Charter's record includes a 2026 ShinyHunters breach affecting 4.9M accounts and a reported 2025 Salt Typhoon intrusion; its 10-K documents a Tier 1 cybersecurity program.
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[2021-10-21] · COLLECTION
The FTC's October 2021 staff report "A Look at What ISPs Know About You," based on compulsory 6(b) orders to the six largest US ISPs including Charter Communications Operating LLC, found that the ISPs studied collect and combine data for purposes unrelated to providing service, including browsing data, television viewing history, connected-device data, location information, and race and ethnicity data.
Charter's Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 (filed January 30, 2026) states that its advertising sales division, Spectrum Reach, operates a proprietary platform built on subscriber set-top box viewership data — which the company describes as anonymized and aggregated — to create data-driven linear TV campaigns for local advertisers.
The FTC's October 2021 staff report identifies Charter as the nation's second-largest cable provider, serving approximately 29 million subscribers through its Spectrum brand and operating the Spectrum Reach advertising platform offering multi-channel and cross-device solutions for advertisers.
Charter Communications, Inc. is an SEC-reporting public company (NASDAQ: CHTR) whose Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025 (filed January 30, 2026) discloses that Liberty Broadband and Advance/Newhouse Partnership hold significant stakes with special governance rights, and that a combination with Liberty Broadband and transactions involving Cox Communications were pending as of the filing.
Spectrum Reach's website markets advertising built on data-driven insights from over 30 million households combined with third-party insights from more than 70 data partners for audience targeting and ad-performance measurement.
Announcing its October 2021 ISP privacy report covering the six largest US ISPs including Charter, the FTC said that even though several of the ISPs studied promise not to sell consumers' personal data, they allow it to be used, transferred, and monetized by others, with disclosures hidden in the fine print of their privacy policies.
Charter's FY2025 Form 10-K states that Spectrum Reach enables third-party multi-channel cable networks such as AMC and Univision to deploy household-addressable advertising on their own inventory within Charter's footprint, charging them an enablement fee, and that Spectrum Reach employs multi-screen deterministic attribution services for television and streaming.
In January 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported — as covered by BleepingComputer — that the Chinese state-backed Salt Typhoon hacking campaign against US telecommunications firms had also breached the systems of Charter Communications; Charter declined to comment on the report.
In Item 1C of its FY2025 Form 10-K (filed January 30, 2026), Charter states that cybersecurity risks are classified as a Tier 1 risk within its enterprise risk management program, and describes risk management and assessment programs, security and event monitoring capabilities, and detailed incident response plans.
BleepingComputer reported on May 29, 2026 that the ShinyHunters extortion group stole personal information from 4.9 million accounts in an April 2026 breach of Charter Communications' Salesforce instance via a voice-phishing attack, and leaked the data after Charter refused to pay ransom; Charter stated that no sensitive personal information or CPNI was exfiltrated.
The Apple App Store privacy label for the My Spectrum app (developer: Charter Communications) declares Purchases, Location, Identifiers, and Usage Data as "Data Used to Track You" across apps and websites owned by other companies, and lists Browsing History, Search History, Precise Location, and Advertising Data among data collected and linked to the user's identity.
Spectrum Reach's "Targeting Capabilities" page states that its aggregated and de-identified first-party data is gathered from direct connections to over 30 million Spectrum households, and markets targeting down to the household or device level using over 1,000 addressable segments, plus matching of advertisers' own customer data against Charter's first-party data through partnerships with Blockgraph and Cadent.