No, frontrunning is when you are trading on your own account and a customer's account for the same security.<p>The article, while well-researched and well-written, seems to neglect the fact that HFT has severely narrowed the spread (now almost always one penny) whereas before it was large, and the difference went to someone else's pocket.<p>The other thing that seems to be missing in the thinking of the article is that there is nothing preventing the institutional traders from colocating their own box in Mawah, grabbing a piece of that cable, and joining the game.<p>And everything is HFT now, it seems--just look at dice for c++ jobs in chicago for one example.