Slashdot Mirror

Sites will start blocking Firefox browsers. If enough popular sites do this, people will be switching to other browsers. Or people will start making Firefox masquerade as a different browser, which (if it becomes popular) will subsequently be made illegal. That is assuming that third-party cookie blocking won't just be made illegal.

It is appropriate to describe this as a first-strike, because there will be a retaliatory salvo, and much of our Internet freedom will get caught in the crossfire.

I block 3rd party cookies in all of the big 3: Chrome, IE, and Firefox, using the built-in settings, but I also block most advertising SITES completely. Blocking almost all ads in the process.

I do this by using MVP's ad blocking hosts file, which can be found here: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

This blocks not just the ad's, but the cookies too, since if they cannot reach your computer, they cannot access or ad cookies either.

It's not a perfect solution, sometimes leaving blank spots on webpages, and ALSO blocking most coupon sites, but it can be easily edited to remove sites you want to allow. I personally have a few elevated batch files that add / remove sites to the hosts file, and another that renames it (essentially removing it), and renames it again (making it available again).

I started using my hosts file to block ad sites when Double Click began tracking cookies between websites, and then stopped about 6 months later, because I believe in supporting the free websites I use, and know that if the free website model cannot be self-sustaining, that the only real alternative is to pay for every online service. Meaning no free email, search engines, help sites, or News.

My problem is that advertisers keep pushing the envelope of performance, and thus have made my 2 year old ASUS x64 netbook (my main computer, since I've returned to school) as slow a sh*t on the internet, causing some webpages to take minutes to load (because of multiple, heavy, ads), and others to freeze (because of heavy CPU usage). So about 9 months ago I began blocking sites again with the hosts file, purely as self-defense, because I can't afford to upgrade my computers every year and a half.

Blocking sites with my hosts file also has the side-effect / ?advantage? of blocking ALL traffic from my computer to those data-collection websites, not just traffic from my browser. Meaning that any ad-driven software I've installed cannot pull ads from any site listed in my hosts file. This is not because I am unwilling to "pay" for the ad-driven software, but have been forced to takes steps to keep my computer usable, and those pieces of software are simply "collateral damage".

If advertisers would be willing to limit the size and CPU usage of their ads based on the capacity of the target computer, I might be willing to open up my hosts file to them again. Until then, I will advise others to use their hosts file to block ads.

Actually. you might have heard of Doubleclick, one of the most obnoxious advertising agencies in existence. A wholly owned subsidiary of Google. In reality, Google's ads generally ARE splashed over the entire top of the page (Doubleclick, a Google company, actually recommends this - it's called placing ads "Above the Fold" and draws attention to the advertisement ahead of the content) and in fact ARE blinking, loud, animated affairs.

They exclusively use doubleclick (google) to serve ads, and you can opt out their tracking: http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx You can also disable third party tracking cookies so they can't determine the shape of your tinfoil hat ;).

They have a "opt-out" cookie value.

http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

The catch being that if you do clear your cookies, you'll have to re-set the opt out cookie as well.

If you care, here's the URL to opt-out of the other big ad network:

http://www.atlassolutions.com/optout.aspx

I don't have all of them, but Doubleclick and Atlas cover something like 75-80% of the market.

DoubleClick is not the world's largest ad agency. They are the world's largest ad SERVING company. They don't sell advertising. They serve it and report on it for their clients. As for the privacy of the data that DoubleClick has, it belongs to their customers, not to them. http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/pr ess_releases/default.asp?p=573 Google, on the other hand, does sell advertising. Buying DoubleClick does not help them in the selling of advertising, but allows them to speed up their leap into more rich media ad serving, etc.

Is this post really interesting? did anybody actually look at the trustix link? Is there really evidence of DoubleClick using cookies to obtain users personal information? If so, how? Aren't cookies basically just key value pairs that a domain can store on a users browser to access later?

Are cookies really spyware? Is every site on the internet that uses cookies spyware? I believe that's most of the internet... I don't know but it just seems like the quality of peoples opinions on this issue is quite poor due to a general intellectual laziness and a willingness to assume the worst.

The site also mentions that DoubleClick acquired Abacus direct and announced plans to tie together web-identities with Abacus's already existing database on real people. Rightfully there was an outcry and laws should have been passed to protect peoples privacy, but I don't know that any laws were passed. And the site doesn't mention that DoubleClick chose not to follow through with this plan due to the privacy concerns.

So what does this amount to? DoubleClick is basically a marketing technology company that provides advertisers with technologies to profile users by their browsing habits over the ad networks. The data is not identifiable and does not even belong to DoubleClick. If you don't like it you can opt-out and basically you will get ads that aren't relevant to you instead of ones that are more relevant to you. And that's about it. My biggest gripe would be with the fact that their technology enables publishers and advertisers to make ads that annoy the hell out of me. Although I think that has improved over the past few years.

Well I don't know the details all that well, perhaps someone has some more damning evidence against them, but it should be laid out. Because so far the conversation has been more hysterical than informative. It's also a somewhat depressing reflection of the current crop of Slashdotters maybe... Am I getting old or are the threads dumbed down relative to 4-5 years ago?

I use Mike's add blocking hosts files on my three computers that blocks advertising related communication with DoubleClick and other similar advertising related URL's. The modified hosts file takes the attempts to communicate with them and diverts them to the 127.0.0.1 loop back address on my computers. I use one of their modified hosts files on all three of my computers. One of the computers is a Windows 2000, another runs Windows XP and the third runs Ubuntu Linux. The modified hosts file trick works on all three computers and I update the modified hosts file regularly.

Before doing that, I used to go directly to the DoubleClick webpage and choose the opt-out option from the DoubleClick website. That would let them know that I did not wish to be tracked by them and a special cookie would be downloaded that would stop them from tracking me on-line.

What exactly is evil about DoubleClick? If you don't want the cookie, you can either not visit sites that use DoubleClick, or you can opt out of the tracking cookie:

http://www.doubleclick.com/us/about_doubleclick/pr ivacy/dart_adserving.asp

DoubleClick is pretty darn non-evil, unless you hate advertising for some reason.

Google's got it down well with AdSense (sure, there're complaints and complainers, legitimate ones, too, but it works well for a lot of people and businesses, and they're working on improvements).

Once you've got the self-contained ecosystem (i.e. where the "currency" remains within the "GRealm"), it's doable. e.g. A publisher racks up dimes in her account by selling click-throughs to her popular blog articles. Those dimes are worth the full US$.10 so long as they're applied to her AdWords account, or Google Base purchases. When she requests a disbursement, Google takes its cut before sending the Cash Money Check.

If you can extend the GRealm (or YRealm, or MSRealm, etc.) to a large enough universe, it'd work very well for a lot of people (producers as well as consumers).

There've been *so* many Close But No Cigars on this front, and there are many interesting contenders now.

When someone with a compellingly-encompassing realm pulls it off, it adds another tier to the Free->Semi-Free->Subscription-Only models that exist today and "web 3.0" will be well on its way.

Steve

http://meanbusiness.com/

Opt out from DoubleClick's cookie (well, the one that identifies you anyway)

Of course, this assumes that you actually trust DoubleClick in the first place...

So how is this different from DoubleClick?

You really need to be more careful about throwing words around recklessly like that. Just because someone does not agree with you, or they have done more research than you on a given subject does not make them foolish.

You said

"they certainly don't track you across sites"

They've been investigated by the Attorney General and the FTC over it.

According to DoubleClick's own web site (the source):

"DoubleClick does not use your name, address, email address, or phone number to deliver Internet ads. DoubleClick does use information about your browser and Web surfing to determine which ads to show your browser. "

Therein lies the problem with DoubleClick, and the level of community anger towards them. They do track people, they have been doing it for years, and the scope has been increasing gradually. While I'll concede that I haven't heard of them installing spyware, I can't say I would put it past them.

You also said:

"Take a look at Doubleclick's SEC filings and their 300M or so in revenue."

Aside from the fact that you're off on the numbers, why would I? They're a private company?

Oh, and last one:

" They do not throw pop-ups in your face"

Not only do they throw pop ups in your face, they help people get around your popup blockers. Great guys you're defending here.

I think it's important to point out that your defending DoubleClick as though they were the only option. They're not. There are other companies out there that behave ethically and haven't even been investigated once by the FTC or the Attorney General. There are at least three I can think of off the top of my head that are not compiling illegal databases designed to profile the spending habits of every man woman and child on earth. You can choose to work with a company that will be honest, and adhere to their privacy policies, and not exploit you or your visitors without consent. There are lots of companies out there that do will pay you as much or more than DoubleClick does for your space. Or you could do what I do with Microsoft. Nothing. If it works, why would you care how they behave or what they do? Who cares about business practices.. right? C'mon, apathy is actually a nice place to be, but it doesn't give you the right to be an idiot.

If it helps at all, opt out at the top of the page. You'll still have a cookie, but, in theory, it instructs them not to track you.

You may be using Adblock. Once you've adblocked a URL with a wildcard (example http://ads.doubleclick.com/* ) then they can have all the popups in the world in all kinds of ad-in formats you're not likely to be loading them.

The targeting is probably more accurate out of a dart gun than from their servers

Watch out for Trademark infringment

There are ways a person could have been proactive to prevent any meaningful DoubleClick tracking. You could delete your cookies causing a new Doubleclick tracker every time, you could download a special opt-out cookie directly from DoubleClick that would prevent tracking to begin with (so they say), or simply point them to localhost in your hosts file. The disadvantage for the tin foils hats is how do you see what information they actually do have on you? If you downloaded the anti tracking cookie, how do you go about removing all tracking data before you got that cookie or deleted your previous cookie for a new one? That I do not know.

Maybe because Google doesn't actually have a monopoly in any of the product areas they compete in? Are you really going to argue that Google is the sole provider of email, online advertising, or desktop searching? The only area in which you may have a point is search engines (even though there are plenty of alternatives there, too). But guess what? It's not illegal to have a monopoly unless you use anti-competitive practices to acquire or maintain it. Since Google by all accounts has done nothing wrong, nobody is complaining.

... subject to a DoS attack crippling the company's DNS servers ...

Oh, wait. It was DoubleClick?

Can I donate some computer time?

Are they gonna sue DoubleClick Software? Or the other way around for trademark infringement?

First paragraph, first sentence

First paragraph, second sentence

First paragraph, third sentence

First paragraph, fourth sentence

Paragraph

Second paragraph, first sentence

Second paragraph, second sentence

Second paragraph, third sentence

Second paragraph, fourth sentence

Second paragraph, fifth sentence

Paragraph

Third paragraph, first sentence

Third paragraph, second sentence

Third paragraph, third sentence

Third paragraph, fourth sentence

Third paragraph, fifth sentence

Conclusion introduction

Conclusion body

Conclusion postscript

Another reason to keep supporting and using Mozilla. Maybe even toss some cash at the Mozilla Foundation. Pop up blocking has been a feature of Mozilla for like three years or so. Microsoft is just getting around to this now but, only for XP. I'm confident that what ever crap doubleshit puts out, Mozilla will have an answer to it with day or weeks to block it.

I just found this page which lets you opt-out of doubleclick storing personal cookie info about you. Most of us probably already block doubleclick cookies but maybe someone will find it useful.

[Sorry, I posted with HTML formatting by mistake. Hope this is easier to read!]

While it is true that data mining technologies can be used for corrupt means, this is the same for any technology. A prime example would be file sharing networks. In themselves, not illegal, but when used to trade bad mp3s, very much so.

It is unfortunate that these database technologies are being widely used for such illegal and semi-illegal purposes.

And for those of you who don't know what data mining is all about, this site is an excellent resource.

While it is true that data mining technologies can be used for corrupt means, this is the same for any technology. A prime example would be file sharing networks. In themselves, not illegal, but when used to trade bad mp3s, very much so. It is unfortunate that these database technologies are being widely used for such illegal and semi-illegal purposes. And for those of you who don't know what data mining is all about, this site is an excellent resource.

DMA contacts (such as webmaster@the-dma.org)
Your local congresspeople/parliment officers/etc (such as John_McCain@McCain.senate.gov )
Those fine doubleclick people(such as publicrelations@doubleclick.net)

Don't be greedy, share the love with those who want to help companies share their fine product information with us!

Feel free to give them a call and give them a piece of your mind.

Remember to be polite, you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

But, this sucks because if my name is on 300 lists than I have to opt-out of each one individually. Why should I have to go through all this hassle to prevent someome from sending me something that I never asked for to begin with!?!?

We should right to our leaders and representatives to ask them to pass laws against this kind of thing. Double Click should work on the "Opt In" principle instead. Don't send a goddam thing unless I specifically request it!

It doesn't appear to be spam-tastic at all -- they talk through the whole thing about newsletters/customer bases/permission-based marketing.

You guys really want to go after a spam tool provider, go nuke Earth Online, or any of the guys who produce stealth emailers.

-- q

First line of their privacy policy:
No personal information is used by DoubleClick to deliver Internet ads.

So either their software doesn't include doubleclick customers, or the Privacy policy is wrong.

Course, if they've got any lawyers, both are probably right.

How long until a company comes along with another extremely restrictive license and no one complains? Everyone on slashdot always complains about repeat posts... eventually with more and more restrictive license attempts, Slashdot and other communities will stop informing us about them for fear of being redundant.

This happens all the time with other technologies, such as DoubleClick's ad tracking (though recently discontinued). The first company gets chastised, but then other companies come along and are no longer controversial enough for mass media to report.

Shouldn't something be done to stop licenses like this completely, without always resorting to consumer pressure?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com] [slashcode.com], line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com] [slashcode.com], line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com], line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com], line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com], line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields [slashdot.org] which are accessed in users.pl [slashcode.com], line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason [slashdot.org] for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick [doubleclick.com] in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

What is the Slashdot Customer Profile?

Slashdot is owned by VA Linux, and VA Linux is a for-profit Corporation. This means that, like other corporations, Slashdot must maintain a customer profile for every user (yes, even you Anonymous Cowards!). These customer profiles are kept in Slashdot's master MySQL database, which is archived on a frequent basis to preserve VA Linux's valuable Intellectual Property rights to its' customer information. The Customer Profile contains many fields, such as the email address you used to register your Slashdot account. In addition, it contains these fields which are accessed in users.pl, line 1898.

They're Tracking WHAT?

You may have noticed that the Customer Profile contains a field called $iplist. You're not dreaming, this is a list of every IP address anyone has used to access Slasdot - ever. Slashdot has a perfectly legitimate reason for maintaining these detailed records on every customer. However, while every Slashdot user understands that the privacy of each Slashdot user is paramount to the current management of Slashdot, we must also understand that Slashdot is property, and that it has been bought - and sold - before. Therefore we must not consider the implication of the existence of Slashdot Customer Profiling under the existing management, but rather the implications under any future management.

Who Would Want my IP?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument only, that VA Linux decides to sell Slashdot to DoubleClick in order to boost its' short-term cash supply. Doubeclick would be looking at Slashdot mainly as an Intellectual Property asset, and its' customer database as the primary portion of that asset (because Slaschode is GPL'd). How, then, can VA Linux maximize the resale value of Slashdot's Intellectual Property assets? By tracking every possible piece of information. The list of IP addresses used by every Slashdot user, reverse-correlated by email, would provide a very lucrative marketing tool to a would-be buyer of Slashdot. Doubleclick could use this Intellectual Property to:

• Correlate web hits to member sites by IP address, sending an email to every Slashdot user who visits a target site.
• Correlate web hits by IP address and present customized content to each Slashdot user who visits a target site, for instance: "Welcome to Superdomains.com, Slashdot user Jamie!"
  
  

It is easy to see why recording the IP profiles of every Slashdot customer maximizes the value of the Slashdot Customer Database. The question is, should you be given the option to opt-out?

For example, the shear number of people who download any particular ad from doubleclick is staggering. Putting some steno'd information in an ad that you paid such an organization to disseminate would make the intended recipient of the hidden info almost impossible to pinpoint.

The amount of information exchange that goes on in the modern wold is amazing. Information can even be transmitted by such things at the time that a particular transfer takes place. Another illustrative example: the time of day that a person receives telemarketing calls, or pings (that are logged) from a particular address could carry information by some agreed-upon code. There is already a steno program where the unhidden communication is spam.

There is no way that anyone, in a position of authority or not could try to check all information exchange for some hidden content

oldspy

ie. is it goatsex that is leading the way?
Or is it plain Jane erotica?
Or do people simply not care as long as it's free?

That's the kind of metrics I care about. Maybe we could loosen the religious right's hold on America if we could show that, indeed, most people in this country are depraved lunatics. After all we are a D E M O C R A C Y right?

Steven

One of the features I like best about it is that it can block out cookies but lets you define sites from it will allow cookies to be set/sent. It will also remove referrers if you want it to

Yeah. Webwasher also lets you set a maximum expiration date on cookies. I leave -all- cookies on now, but excepting a few preferred sites, I make Webwasher expire all cookies within 48 hours. This makes it impossible for evil companies to do any meaningful analysis of my browsing habits.

--

I'd do it myself (if I actually owned a computer). Go to this site from DoubleClick and they'll give you a new cookie.

"cannot you and Rob make your own decisions on who's banner ad service your system runs?"

We Slashdot authors have total editorial freedom.

Note the penultimate word in the previous sentence.

That means we can (and do) publish articles exposing DoubleClick or anyone else we feel needs to be looked at. But "editorial freedom" doesn't extend to sales and marketing decisions. We write the content, and VA/Andover sells it however they want. Welcome to capitalism, this is how it works. In fact, this is one of the best examples of capitalism's intersection with speech that you will ever see, and I say that as someone whose job largely includes criticizing the intersection of capitalism and speech. Rob and Jeff were lucky (and smart) to guarantee all us writers this much latitude.

Most people consider this "Chinese firewall" between content and advertising to be a good thing. And it's the way I like it. The folks who sell ads have never contacted me to complain that my anti-DoubleClick editorializing makes their job harder (though I imagine it might well have). I don't even know those folks' names.

I recognize that some slashdotters, for whatever reason, are going to nag us as long as DC ads appear on some Slashdot pages. I don't know what else to tell them. I'm not in a position to do anything about it -- and that doesn't bother me, because if things change so that I can influence advertising, things might also change so that advertising could influence me. Better to just have a total disconnect there, as far as I'm concerned. While I'm not ecstatic about the DC ads, I am thrilled with the current system.

If I ever bump into one of the ad-sellers at a company meeting (assuming they're wearing a descriptive nametag so I recognize them as such :) I'll probably mention my concerns. That's about the most I can do.

But basically, this is as good as it gets. Oh, and don't forget to opt out. In fact, go to CDT's opt-out page and opt out of every damn thing. And nobody can stop me from telling you that! Woohoo!

Jamie McCarthy

Opt out here . I'm more worried about agents that we don't know about and don't have to provide services such as this.

Perhaps it's time businesses like DoubleClick stopped assuming we want to "opt-in". It's like the credit card application that says "Check here if you do NOT want to participate in" blah blah blah.

The opt-out cookie is a start, but I'd prefer it to be the default setting. Then, if I decide I want my habits tracked (however unlikely), I can choose to do so...and DoubleClick can send me money. It'd be like AllAdvantage.com, except without the annoying "always-on-top" ad bar. If someone is going to get paid to use my information, it should be me.

In case you need it, here's the link to "opt-out" of DoubleClick.

• In the course of delivering an ad to you, DoubleClick does not collect any personally-identifiable information about you, such as your name, address, phone number or email address. DoubleClick does, however, collect non-personally identifiable information about you, such as the server your computer is logged onto, your browser type...

• However, as described in "Abacus Alliance" and "Information Collected by DoubleClick's Web Sites" below, non-personally identifiable information collected by DoubleClick in the course of ad delivery can be associated with a user's personally identifiable information if that user has agreed to receive personally-tailored ads.

First, some words on banners in general:
Banner advertisements are normally the single revenue stream for web sites. Sometimes they irritate the hell out of me, like when there are about 6 on the same page, but I really don't see how someone can object to one or two banners on a page when they don't really get in their way. The argument about the slowing down a site carries little merit. What slows down a site is massive pages, whimsical graphics and icons that each involve a new HTTP connection. Using programs such as Web Washer means that in the future, you'll see less sites around.

And naturally, most don't object to banner advertising on Slashdot and other open-source type sites. Hmmm, so I suppose Yahoo, Excite and co. don't have the right to display banners (and go out of business)? Yeah guys, that makes real sense (!)

Now, the DoubleClick thing:
As for the whole DoubleClick thing: only DoubleClick have access to the database. No one gets this paranoid about 'normal' direct marketing. Why all the hype. You can easily opt out if you want to.

Face it - having your details record in many places and being tracked is just a part of everyday modern life: web site logs, supermarket loyalty cards, credit card bills, CCTV, credit rating databases. Short of going to Mongolia and living by subsistence farming (Very hard given Mongolia's climate!), there's nothing you can do.

Mailbombing or sending mails to all the DoubleClick staff is unlikely to have any effect either. (Except your ISP closing down your account for violating their TOS).

Be a bit more sensible.
If you really object to it yourself, then by all means opt-out.

DoubleClick's Privacy Policy.

Information Collected in the Process of Delivering an ad by DoubleClick

Doub leClick "Opt-Out" Option (how-to)

info@doubleclick.net email address

Uhm, just checked, maybe it's time to deliberatly alter the content of my cookies...

From http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy_policy/ :


In addition, in connection solely with the delivery of ads via DoubleClick technology to one particular Web publisher's Web site, DoubleClick combines the non-personally-identifiable data collected by DoubleClick from a user's computer with the log-in name and demographic data about users collected by the Web publisher and furnished to DoubleClick for the purpose of ad targeting.

There are some cases when a user voluntarily provides personal information in response to an ad (a survey or purchase form, for example). In these situations, DoubleClick (or a third party engaged by DoubleClick) collects the information on behalf of the advertiser and/or Web site. This information is used by the advertiser and/or Web site so that you can receive the goods, services or information that you requested. Where indicated in some requests, DoubleClick may use this information in aggregate form to get a more precise profile of the type of individuals viewing ads or visiting the Web sites.