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DoubleClick Taken to Court
- Friday, January 28, 2 p.m. US EST
Tuesday USA Today reporter Will Rodger wrote about DoubleClick. We linked to his story here. Wednesday afternoon a DoubleClick Corporate Communications person* called Andover.net Corporate Communications VP Janet Holian and asked her to remove our story and the link to USA Today.
Janet passed the problem to me, since Andover has a very strict policy prohibiting Andover corporate people from interfering in editorial decisions.
I listened politely to the DoubleClick person, who told me USA Today's story was innacurate and we were wrong to link to it, and how she was calling journalists all over the country to tell them that the information in it was false and should not be relied upon. Then she requested that we pull the Slashdot story that linked to the USA Today story. No direct threats were made, but the words "refer this to our legal department" were said.
I said no, we couldn't and wouldn't pull the story.
Next move: I called USA Today. These guys are good fact-checkers. They pointed me at some of DoubleClick's own press releases and privacy policy pages, most of which had already been referenced by Slashdot in this story back in October, 1999.
An Open Offer
I offered DoubleClick's Corporate Communications person a chance to state their side of the story here, on Slashdot. I promised to run whatever they sent verbatim. I have received nothing from them so far. I called DoubleClick and reiterated the offer before writing this. Still nothing, not even an e-mail saying what information they feel is incorrect in any of the stories written about them here, in USA Today or in other media.
At this point, it's DoubleClick's move. Perhaps, eventually, they'll post something on their Press Release page. We'll keep an eye on it in case they do.
* I left out the name of the DoubleClick Corporate Communications person purely as a personal courtesy. She is a very nice woman in a bad position, trying to do a very tough job - which, right now, could probably best be described as "frantic damage control."
I dont know about you, but i wouldnt want this guy as my lawyer.
Lawyer: So Mr Greenjeans have you ever seen my
defendant before?
MrG: Welp, yes I did. I saw him steal something from my store.
Lawyer: Shut up, old man. You listen to me you stupid fuck, you never saw my defendant.
Lawyer2: Objection your honor, this is insane. He can not swear at a witness.
Lawyer: Shut up you fucken prick, I fucked your wife last night, how about that?!
Judge: Mr Asee, will you please remove that bag from your head? I can not make out who you are.
Laywer: No, dickhead. This bag allows me curse off in court.
I will agree that there is a time and a place for lawyers, but I believe that they have taken their place a step too far. Lawyers abuse their rights by putting stupid lawsuits in our courts, like the woman who got burned by McDonald's coffee. These cases use up precious resources in our courts that could be used much, much more efficiently. With everything that's been going on in courts right now, I say the government should start putting restrictions on lawsuits rather than everything else in the world.
These cases are not contradictory. In both cases, culpability is directed at the party who deliberately lies or tries to deceive the public.
In the MPAA case, the MPAA is lying. They sell DVDs with the implicit understanding that the purchaser is going to view the movie. Then afterward, when the purchaser attempts to watch the movie on his Linux box, they want to change the terms of the deal and not allow that. That's not fair - you don't get to change the terms after the deal's done. If they had said up front "By buying this DVD, you agree to only use an MPAA-approved player," and the purchaser agreed to it, then their position would be justifiable. That isn't what they did. Furthermore, they're lying about the purpose of the lawsuits. Really, how many people are making illegal copies of DVDs? I'd wager not very many. Yet the MPAA keeps falsely misrepresenting this as the focus of their efforts.
The Doubleclick case, like the MPAA case, involves a company which deceives the public and wants to change the terms of an agreement after the deal's done. Doubleclick said they were not collecting certain types of information and then did exactly what they claimed they weren't doing.
Both cases have little to do with private information and a lot to do with who's lying and cheating.
and then of course
I know some of the entries could be concatened somehow but don't know how. Would 199.95.206.0/23 prevent 199.95.206.0 to 199.95.209.255. Any other IP ranges I am missing out ?stupid lawsuits in our courts, like the woman who got burned by McDonald's coffee
FUCK YOU, dude. I am guessing that your assertion is based on a typical fucken layman's analysis of the case ie fucken none at all. So having heard your side, may I fucken retort?
Fuck you. The case was fucken good. The proof that the case was fuck3n good was that it fucken won. Bad cases don't fucken win.
Fuck you. Do you think that this fucken lady showed up in the courthouse with Skadden Arps Ballseater and Bosch, while McDonalds like showed up with some drunken lazyass public defender? No. McD's has a fucken All-American, All-Star team of fucken lawyers. And they still lost. Sounds like a fucken good case to me.
Fuck you. Do you fucken ring up Bill Gates and tell him how he doesn't deserve his money? I'll bet you fucken probably do. And I'm sure he gives as little of a fuck what you think as I do. Because he's got the $$$$, and you don't. And he's a winner, and you ain't. And this lady (and, may I add, her fucken attorney, who deserves a medal and not all this SHIT) is a winner too. Keep your petty fucken jealousy to yourself and spend an hour of your whining time every day studying. It's possible for a really good engineer to make nearly as much as a partner at a good law firm these days, ya know
--just call me streetlawyer man, ma'am
After all, they indicated by typing "MAIL TO" into my SMTP server that they accept the terms in my SMTP banner.
Terms like "you give me all your money and property".
Anyway, if you have a DoubleClick cookie and you want to have fun with it, go to netdeals.com and type in the following info:
Name: Kevin Ryan
Occupation: DoubleClick President
Email: kryan@doubleclick.net
The top guy at DoubleClick is Kevin O'Connor, not Kevin Ryan. I used to work with O'Connor at DCA in the early 90s -- he was a total jerk back then, and from what I've heard & read here, it sounds like he's gotten even worse.
Its interesting to note that the only reason Double click are being sued is because they slipped up. If they had announced that they were doing this then there would be no case. The suit was filled on the grounds that they claimed they wern't doing this kind of stuff, when in fact they were. If they'd just owned up and then kept their corporate head down it would all have blown over after a while and people would have forgotten about it. Sure they would have had a, relative, rush to opt out amongst those who saw what was happening. But after a while those who came along after wouldnt bother because they probably wouldnt even know. Joe Average Surfer just isn't aware of this kind of stuff anymore. The net is getting dumber and will continue to do so as the number of non-savvy users continues to grow. /. is not a representative sample of web users. Most people here know far more about the web that 99% of people on the web ever will.
When the police decide they don't like you, because you did not kiss their ass, a lawyer is the only person who will support you and help you, and who knows the ropes.
Your attitude towards lawyers is as ignorant as a racist attitude towards blacks. Perhaps when you move out of your parents house (mentaly or phisically) and experience the real world, you might come to appreciate how lawyers are your friend.
I'm sure if they get eoungh heat and see enough people opt-out to threaten their business, that little feature is history, and there's very little anyone can do about it.
And yes, I've got the ads sites blocked in my /etc/hosts. There's very little doubleclick can do about that.
Good observation, but I think Bruce Sterling still beat you to it. :)
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Surely you mean the .netscape/cookies.txt file, and not the bookmarks file. Unless you explicitly bookmark a doubleclick site, it won't appear in the bookmarks file...
Good point though. Mark 'cookies.txt' as Read-Only, and you never save any cookies through a session. Of course, this affects all sites, not just doubleclick.
Hmmm. AWEB3 on the Amiga lets you deny cookies from specific sites - why don't we petition Netscape/Mozilla/Opera/MS to do the same in their browsers, thus giving us the option to opt-out on all cookies from sites we are not sure about?
Would like like to accept this cookie?
Yes, No, Always from this site, never from this site.
T.
Reading Jakob Nielsen's "Why Advertising Doesn't Work on the Web" might be fruitful.
You mean like China does to the outside world?
All those evil, capitalist sites? Sites where
people speak freely about their governments?
Even sites like slashdot?
Or what a country like Iran would do given the
chance -- if a woman had a picture of herself
wearing an andover.net t-shirt and shorts, it'd
be banned.
These firewalls are already pretty regularly
penetrated; cryptography and steganography only
make it easier. Someone could host content
offshore, relayed through any third-party country
like the UK or India, and then redistribute it
through the US. Unless you can get *everyone*
in the world to blackhole route a site, it'll
find a way through, especially if it's valuable
data. During the recent Kosovo war, Serbian
sites were still on the net, after all -- including free radio sites mirrored in Amsterdam
detailing the plight of those trapped in the
crossfire.
After all, one person's "evil vile filithy trash"
is another's message of freedom. Systems like
ZKS Freedom
will only make it harder to censor the net.
If people want to protect privacy, they should
do it themselves, using Freedom, throwaway accounts, or Junkbuster; they should run crying
to the government to do it for them.
Physical people and property don't move offshore.
It would be pretty hard to beat someone's
wife from 6 000 miles away.
A better parallel would be "we should legalize
sending death threats via email because otherwise
people will just send death threats from offshore". That argument breaks down precisely
at the point where the email stops being a
random piece of email (legal) and is a direct
"immediate and palpable entreaty to or threat of
violent action", which is already a criminal act,
and is covered by existing law.
You don't even need to hack the browser: it already supports this! And it's easier than adding routes or /etc/host entries. See my post above.
- || shExpMatch(url, "*ads*")
the auto-proxy config would also toss out all URLS with "ads" in them; but that isn't focused enough for my tastes. Anyway, I don't use something like JunkBuster itself for the reason given in the comments at my no-ads page:Keep in mind that nothing stops DoubleClick et al. from tracking you by, say, your IP address. There's nothing particularly sacred about your cookie; it's just "more unique" than other ways They have of identifying you. (Me, I refuse cookies from everywhere but Slashdot. :-)
Users of the iCab browser will find that it can filter cookies (and images too) based on domain (and a few other rules).
It's a Mac only browser, and is still in pre-release. It's lacking Javascript, but has a remarkably small memory and disk footprint, it's also about half again as fast as IE or Netscape on a Mac.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Educate !
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Maybe these OEMs are customers of DoubleClick or other advertising companies, so would not want to block ads.
Isn't there a nice way to pollute their database? By sending bogus cookies, for instance?
I personally don't care if www.somee-commersite.com figures out that customer #23423423453 clicked on ad A to get to their site and then proceeded to buy product B. I also don't care if some web site can see the path that vistitor #98323 took through their site.
What I do want to avoid, and what DoubleClick has done, is give the ability for an online retailer to know that John Doe, 24 Main St., WallaWalla WA, (876)555-1234, 31 years of age, white male, Credit card # 123-232-232-123 exp. 4/01(good credit history), recently bought prozac from some online pharmacy, has been browsing some of your competitor's site, looking at high-priced audio components.
You can imagine the nightmare browsing the web will become when you can no longer simply browse an online store without the possibility that the online retailer will take that as their cue to have some telemarketing droid call you up and annoy you, or to deluge you with e-mail or junk mail.
Having an exact record of what you've done online, with no way to see that record or correct mistakes is he threat here. What if, for example, a service company can access your profile and decide whether they want you as a customer auomatically? They can raise or lower their prices based on how desireable a customer you are. All automatically, without you knowing.
Anyhow, this particular case isn;t an issue for me, since I've already blocked out DoubleClick.
Mac users might also want to check out WebFree, a control panel that can filter out whatever you tell it to.
-jon
.. but, as far as the ads go, with most cable channels now (all the ones I get, anyway), you get the ads too. What you're paying for isn't freedom from ads - it's (supposedly) better, or at least more, content.
If you have an ethernet card that has a unique "thumbprint" and if you have an IDE disk then that likely has a unique serial number as well.
Sig is taking a break!
Mine looks like this:
.doubleclick.net TRUE / FALSE 1920499376 id OPT_OUT
Hmm, I assume the number relates to the expiration date of the cookie.
You can always try Anonymizer.com for annonymous web access.
I've found it usefull in the past when I haven't wanted my IP traced (somebody had managed to get my ISPs range of IPs banned from a forum I needed to post to, it wasn't me BTW)
--
So it doesn't matter whether you're right or not, as long as you have the smartest lawyer?
Sure, there's lots of bits of info people can track. But, the key really is whether they can link it all together in a form that makes it easy for them to develop a complete marketing profile of you that can be sold and used to sell you stuff via phone, mail, etc. based on your activity on the web.
This is what doubleclick is doing now and that's what is pissing more people off.
> ln -s /dev/null cookies.txt
It does not work with some versions of Communicator, because in order to update the cookies info it first deletes the cookie.txt file and then rewrites it (recreating it as a normal text file), instead of truncating it to length zero and then appending.
The result is a freshly created cookies.txt.
Al least, this was the behaviour I experienced with some versions. So check if it's your case.
My 0.02 euro.
"You spell it potato, VP. Quayle spells it potatoe..."
Actually McDonalds does have a policy regarding the temperature of their coffee. It's pretty low, something like 130 F. You'll get a burn, but nothing excessively severe. At the McDonalds in question the manager decided that 180 F was more appropriate since it kept the coffee fresher longer.
And as has already been pointed out, the lady asked for medical bills only. The punitive damages came by way of the jury.
Amatuer.
I don't like your idea at all, we should not be running from the problem. we should crush and destroy it! Sue the heck out of these guys, running from the problem will not fix it. Sure, I know how to bypass them, but what about my non technical friends? and families?
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Does it matter if she succedds with sucking some shiny $$ out of them? As far as I am concerned, she is on our side, we are on the same team. If she spends money/energy/time and wins $$$, kudos to her. To be frank and honest, if we will speak via actions, all these big guys will back down, imagine if 500 different people sued these guys? Do you think they will have to fight 500 differnet people? that will require that they win all of the 500 cases. I think they will wake up. Is 500 a lot from the large community of technology intellects? I think not, but again, 500 is a lot when you talk about those willing to take actions instead of sit on their butts and type away on discussion forums.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
In the end, it's futile to try to restrict businesses like this; all doubleclick would need
to do is contract with an offshore tracking...
Yes, big businesses would move offshore and their operating expenses increase. But the halfwit next door would be stopped cold from playing at those games. A minimum of capital and organisation is necessary to move offshore.
Since the law forbidding spam was passed in Austria, the amount of spam I receive with Austrian addresses dropped of a lot.
Even if these kind of regulation don't stop the problem, it reduce the number of offenders dramatically.
Club cards at stores. Pretty much the same thing. Think about your ATM card. Or you credit card.
It shouldn't be too hard to map your purchases through all of those, especially for these large companies with tons of $$.
Hm.. now that I think about it, I forgot to fill out all my personal info on most of the store cards I have. I still get discount prices, but they don't have any of my personal info. Oops..
-Dexx
"And ten billion sushi dinners cried out for vengeance." -Good Omens
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Some of us still have accounts
74020,3224
S/L on 2 (formerly 3 ) forms
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Not quite. In the UK at least, the law states that any company planning to store any information about you in electronic form must a) inform you of that fact and b) provide an option for you to ask that your information be removed. This applies to all organizations, not only commercial ones; so technically if a Boy Scout troup leader keeps a list of his scouts' addresses and phone numbers on his PalmPilot, he is leagally required to inform them (and probably their parents) that he is doing this...
ai731
--
"I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent"
Hey wasn't it Elvis Costello that sang the peace love and understanding bit?
War is necrophilia.
Well, with the Internet Junk Buster, I only get cookies from a few select sites (and I don't get any doubleclick banner adds), so I'm perfectly fine...
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
If I want my privacy protected, all I have to do is to run through a privacy cgi proxy thingie. I can set up one of those pretty easily... (Yea, I'm a CGI script hosted at Tripod.com or whatever)
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sounds good. but do you really enjoy inflation that much?
Think about it a sec. " A minimum of capital and organisation is necessary to move offshore. "
that means the companies would increse prices to make up for the profit losses. Plus you add in Import and shipping taxes, and you see the prices of goods increse consideribally. For a good example, think about what would happen to thge prices if one of the popular companies,, say Coca-Cola© moved to Denmark, or France.
Well, here's the site for Marin County Superior Court, but I can't seem to find any cases under "Hariett Judnick" or "DoubleClick".
This is all that shows on the screen without scrolling through the legaleeze (who does that anymore?):
- Please read the privacy policy described here before submitting your chance to win.
So they kind of tell you, but not really.NetDeals' Privacy Commitment (scroll down)
To learn more about cookies and how to opt-out of targeted advertising, please click here
Anyway, if you have a DoubleClick cookie and you want to have fun with it, go to netdeals.com and type in the following info:
- Name: Kevin Ryan
Does anybody know where he lives? New York?Occupation: DoubleClick President
Email: kryan@doubleclick.net
Think about it for another sec. Company A decides to move offshore, and their prices go through the roof. Company B decides not to move offshore, and their prices stay low. Voila! Instant market-driven boycott of company A.
What would happen if Coke moved to Denmark/France/wherever to keep using slimy business practices? Their prices would go up, their market share would be gobbled up by Pepsi, et al who are not using those slimy practices.
Sounds like a good thing to me.
She was in a parked car.
-- Rachael
Browsers will only present a cookie to the same site that gave it to you.
Interestingly, it looks like DoubleClick disabled the Opt-Out feature. Try it for yourself.
If you go to the Opt-Out page, and click on the link under "If you would still like to Opt-Out, please click here", you will be prompted for username and password.
It didn't do that 8 hours ago, so something has changed since then. This morning, I was able to Opt Out from my work computer just fine.
What gives?
-= Stefan
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Cool. But I don't think I got that cookie from /.. Must have been after that upgrade, when I forgot to set the warning about cookies :(. Anyway, they can't think that you are me, because its a dynamic ip. :) Some other poor slob will get clobbered.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
So you didn't bother to read the article...eh?
The lawsuit is asking for DoubleClick to be banned from collecting user information without the prior written consent of the user...not for money. Don't assume that lawsuits are always about money. Sometimes they are about doing the right thing.
From what I have read, if a cookie is set by somerandomsite.com then www.somerandomsite.com, and adserver.somerandomsite.com can also read that cookie. Cookies can not be set for top level domains like com or org.
That doesn't address the problem of some domain putting ad banners on tons of sites and getting to read their cookie whenever you visit just about anything.
If you are running linux, you might want to switch to Mozilla. While it is still a bit buggy, it has a new cookie feature that I like. You can tell it to warn you before accepting cookies, and it has a "remember this desicion" checkbox that works on a domain by domain basis. It then stores that info in cookieperm.txt in your user profile.
Somebody yesterday suggested that we start some chain emails warning people about this and giving the opt out link. I suggest we also start them on ICQ and other instant messanger programs.
Say that I went to My University (MyU.edu) and I had a computer in my dorm room on the campus network (my.resnet.MyU.edu) then I could set cookies for resnet.MyU.edu or MyU.edu, or mess up other peoples cookies that were set for the same. I'm sure MyU.edu wouldn't be happy with me messing around with the user ID variables of people visiting the MyU website at MyU.edu, would they?
Make a difference. Hurt them where it counts, their pocketbook.
If Ford(or any car company) put a tracking device on each of their cars and tracked their driver's personal information with driving habits and sold that info without telling anyone, they'd be in huge legal problems.
Yet sadly it seems because the Inet is a new medium Doubleclick can for now get away with it.
The answer is supposed to be no (only the domain that sets it can read it), but if a cookie is set with esentially a null domain anyone can read it.
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Best I can tell they are trying to do at least 2 separate things. (yes, i've had to help build things like this before)
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Taking the fear of corporatism with a grain of salt, I went to DoubleClick's privacy policy page http://www.doubleclick.net/privacy_policy/privacy. htm . So I clicked "for Opt Out info" to opt out.
. pl.
That took me here: http://www.doubleclick.net/optout/default.asp
This page told me I had "NOT opted out", that my ID was ae6062b8, and to "click here" in order to Opt Out. I did.
I got to this URL next: http://www.doubleclick.net/cgi-bin3/optout/check2
It told me I could NOT get to the Opt Out page! Error 401.
I'm a new convert to paranoia about corporatism.
I just checked and their privacy statement is off-line
I'd like to make a comment to the person who said that her case must have been a good one because it won. Just because a civil case wins doesn't mean it was a good case. Just that the jury sympathized with the plaintiff. Well, not always but I'm sure it happens more than we would like to think.
I was on a jury for a civil case. Remember civil cases don't have to be all for one. You can split in your voting and majority wins. In this case the operator of a bulldozer was killed when he rolled his bulldozer off a steep hill. His family sued his employer for wrongful death. ( forget the exact amount, but it was for several million dollars.)
The first day of deliberations we were stuck six to six. The reason the six people felt the company was not at fault but because they were a large company and could afford to pay. That we should award his family some of the money that they wanted.
The next day when we came back to deliberations several people had thought about the issue and argued that just because a large company can afford to pay a million dollars, does not mean that it is responsible to pay their employees family the money.
We ended up deciding that the employer was not at fault and did not award the money to the family.
So it doesn't always mean the best case wins, sometimes the most sympathetic case will.
- "Yeah man, I tell ya what, man...That dang ol' Internet, man...You just go one there and point and click...Talk about
Simply use a filter and you preven "them" from tracking you, but better yet, why not randomly change your cookie every so often? I have been trying to figure out if cookies are cached, I think they are, but if you go through and change the number in your cookie everytime you start netscape, you're not only preventing you from tracking you, you're screwing up thier data on other customers.
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
While its true you can edit the file and remove the offending lines (and I do periodically..), if you don't want cookies at all, you can just disable them totally in the "Advanced" part of the Netscape Preferances.
True it means you can never use cookies again, unlike the previous poster..
But then, I'm presuming you all trust Navigator here... you do, don't you?
--
May contain traces of nut.
If the woman has a case, she will win. If she's whining like a bitch, she won't. End of. It's like a free market, only it's better than a free market
because the smartest lawyer with the best argument always wins. How many other industries are there where the best product always wins? Not software.
Where in the bowels of hell did you get that crock?
This bullshit happens everytime a fucking company thinks they can get away with it. It's not the lawyer's fault except when you get shit like 18- year olds can't use software (ie. Corel), grievances filed over a hot cup of coffee, I mean come on! Where do you stop?
Don't get me wrong I know lawyers who give a fuck whop try their hardest (one woman I met tried to help a young girl who was molested, the kid told her she would lie in court because she was afraid.)
Frankly, I've had enough of the lipservice. Freedom of Information act. Bullshit, who's got the time the money and the PhD required to get through the red tape.
As for stock options. Why not? I hardly can believe you don't.
As for freedom, I don't see it. Until every human being can affrord a legal counsel for a four year term without losing everything including their house, I refuse to accept anyone telling me this is freedom.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
If these companies think gathering personal info is such a good thing for the public, why don't they explain/enumerate the advantages for us and allow us to opt-in?
Mac users also have the simplest option of all: replace the MagicCookie file in your Netscape prefs folder with a folder of the same name. No more cookie problems, ever. Of course, you get none of the benefits either, but do we care? Didn't think so.
My sentiments exactly!
It's a form of negative billing. Very similar to what the TV cable companies tried to do here in Canada a couple of years ago. Basically they attempted to put everybody on all the new "packages" they were releasing. Unless you went to the cable company and told them you didn't want the service, you'd get billed for it. Of course, they backed off when there was a huge public outcry.
*sigh* Take away people's freedoms and they don't care. Mess with thier TV service and all hell breaks loose! Why does that just seem WRONG?
"The obvious is that which is least understood and most difficult to prove." -- A fortune cookie
If you are a Windows user I recommend Proxomitron.
It is a LOT more flexible than JunkBuster.
http://members.tripod.com/Proxomitron/
Basically it is like IPFilter - edit the *content* before you receive it. Some nice options in addition to the usual ones are:
- freezing animated GIFs (load only the first frame)
- stop meta refreshing
- remove dynamic html
- prevent getting stuck in frames
- *selectively* kill javascripts and applets
- add your own script to pages
- remove / replace a web page
- convert blinking text to bold
I've reverse engineered it to hell for this reason and found no intrusion of privacy ;)
Cookies are your friend. Cookies make web sites a whole lot simpler and more reliable.
True. I don't dispute this. But, there is no reason that cookies should be allowed on graphics (such as ads)! I mean, sure, there are plenty of legit reasons for having a cookie on a html file (look at slashdot). However, allowing cookies attached to pictures is useless, except for advertisement tracking!
Was it the W3C who decided to allow this? Who should we be blaming for this (besides doubleclick, they are obviously responsible)?
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
On the distinction between DeCSS and Doubleclick.
Irrelevant. He did it without permission. (I can just as well argue that DoubleClick is done for a "benign" cause).
Last time I looked, it was made awfully clear that DeCSS was currently used so that people could view DVDs that *they* had paid for. (I know, come the day everyone has T3s in every room and DVDroms are dirt cheap, it might possibly facilitate copying. Bah.)
Let's try extending this logic a wee bit. I buy a book from BigConglomerate.com. Somewhere inside the shrink wrap (evil in books, of itself) is a license agreement that says I can only read the book if I fit it into a special bookstand, available from Filth&Greed and others.
Well, I don't want to read the book using a bookstand, I want to read it in the john and the bookstand won't fit. So, I modify the book so I can take it into the john and read away. *This* should get me in trouble?
Now, let's look at the Doubleclick issue. Some 4 years ago, they said with all piousness that they would not track users with individual information. Even now, the first few paragraphs of the privacy policy says that.
Now, it's changed. While Doubleclick doesn't track, its (quietly purchased) subsidiary lets them put the tracking data together. Now, where is my agreement with Doubleclick where I gave them a right to track me in exchange for the privilege of looking at fancy GIFs for stuff? Funny, I can't see any.
So, IMNSHO, the DeCSS issue is that of making a tool so that I can use data *I* paid for. With Doubleclick, it's an issue of preventing them from using data about me that they *haven't* paid for.
BTW, if the woman had signed up with one of the 'free pc' outfits that make it part of the agreement that she could be tracked, I'd consider a fool, but the company is in the right.
Ah, I feel better. May I have my Blue pill now?
Because you're not paying them lots of $. If you were a millionaire willing to shell out the bucks, you might be able to get their info...of course, you'd also have to convince them that you're more of an aid to their business than a threat.
You see, this is why we have very few rights online.
The poor cook he caught the fits
And threw away all of my grits
I agree with you pretty much completely. It would be ridiculous to sue a light bulb company because the bulb was hot. There are some differences here with the coffee and the woman who was burned. She was not sueing for punitive damages. She sued for medical expenses to cover skin grafts. In my opinion it was appropriate to sue for the costs of skin grafts and medical expenses.
The world is not perfect. It won't become perfect tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. How much do you honestly know about what's "been going on in the courts right now?" I'll admit that I don't know much. I can see that the system is not perfect.
You are bitching about lawyers being the problem. Lawyers are just a reflection of what you are bitching about, not the root.
People believe in their rights. If your grandma got scalded severely from coffee and had to have 40,000 dollars worth of skin grafts and medical treatment... Would you call her stupid for not knowing that the coffee was hot? Or would you think that McDonald's should pay for her medical bills. That is what she sued for, her medical bills. The jury believed McDonalds was acting negligently and awarded the punitive damage because of that.
Maybe they should assume that once in a while a customer is going to spill a drink, and take measures so that the customer is not hospitalized.
This could be selling it cooler or maybe a different container could be used.
It might be stupid, but someone sometime is going to spill coffee on themselves. I have spilled drinks before in my life. Have you? I've been lucky enough to never need hospitalization and skin grafts after spilling a drink. In fact, I took that for granted.
I find this completely unacceptable, and have written to tell them as such. Opting out should be handled at their end, not mine or yours.
I have instructed them to change their policy, or otherwise I will recommend that DoubleClick be billed for the use of our facilities for what is in effect their own record-keeping. I suggest that everyone do the same: I don't mind companies wanting to publish their ads on the net in appropriate ways, but using my computer to do it (or in this case to not do it), isn't appropriate.
Is charging them $2K/month too little? I realize they're only using a little disk space, but I'll completely understand if they want to take their cookies elsewhere. :-) And it would make a nice mortgage payment...
Maybe they should start selling the coffee cold then? Thus avoiding severe scalding.
i can see what you mean and get your point, but would you slow down and actually READ what you are posting? you have a good point, but that doesnt give you a reason to spout incindiary material like this.
also, just because a case was won doesnt have to mean it was a good case. this example you are showing may fit the bill, but it doesnt always turn out. if the dvd cca won against decss, would their case have been good?
by the way, ever heard of the term "zealot"?
---- Sig? What sig? Who needs one, anyway?
The proposed european legislation on privacy forbids EU companies from exchanging personal data with companies located in countries with very lax privacy laws, so it wouldn't be so easy for european companies to deal with DoubleClick should it relocate to Anguilla to continue violating our privacy.
Is it not possible to set up a site that will exchange cookies? You have a DoubleClick cookie, it takes it and gives you back a random cookie. Actual, I was then thinking it goes though and allows you audit the ad type cookies and upload them all, They all go to the exchange pool. The cookie it took, it stores in a database of cookies to be used for random exchange with systems visiting the site.
Now instead of banner exchange ads, you have "exchange your cookies here ads."
This then leads me to the thought, could they complain legally if a site is messing up cookies of a person who visits a site? The cookies are on a person system so legally the person owns them. If people decide to mangle the info, they really can not do much about it, nor could they? Who really owns the cookie on your system?
I sent a message to info@doubleclick.net explaining how I was astounded by what they are doing. Here is the message I sent. I have deleted my email address and replaced it with *****. > -----Original Message----- > From: ********************* [SMTP:******************] > Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 9:58 AM > To: info@doubleclick.net > Subject: astounding > > > > It's an astounding invasion of privacy that you are tracking web users and > relating that to their home address. When I signed up to get online at no > point > did I say to anyone it was OK to track my every movement. > > In the future I'll associate the name doubleclick with doublecross. > > Unhappy IT professional. > > Here is their response. It doesn't seem to be an auto reply. It took them a few hours to get back to me. Thank you for contacting DoubleClick with your concerns. Protecting the privacy of consumers is of paramount importance to DoubleClick. We are founding members of several organizations (NetCoalition.com and Network Advertising Initiative) that are currently creating standards that protect online consumer privacy, and belong to the Online Privacy Alliance. First and foremost, we want to make sure that you understand exactly what we do, and to clear up any misperceptions that exist in the media or marketplace. First, it is important to understand that Web advertising is critical to ensuring that consumers like yourself can continue to access Web sites at no cost. . Effective Web advertising assures that the Web's information, content, and resources remain free for everyone. Second, we would like to clear up a huge misconception in the marketplace that companies such as DoubleClick have the ability to "track" what an Internet user is doing throughout the Web without their knowledge or consent. The fact is that the only time DoubleClick knows when a user visits a Web site is if DoubleClick is serving an ad to that particular Web site. Even then, the information that is collected by DoubleClick is used only for advertising and reporting purposes, so that our customers can gauge the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. DoubleClick does not know the identity of any user to whom DoubleClick delivers an ad until and unless that user has been provided notice about and consented to having his or her identity used in connection with serving advertising and other online marketing services. You should also know that DoubleClick does not sell any information collected from cookies to third parties. DoubleClick has an explanation of what a "cookie" is and how it is used on its Web site that we invite you to read at http://www.doubleclick.net/privacy_policy/. Simply put, cookies are small text files that are sent to a user's hard drive in order to facilitate surfing on the Internet. They are commonly used by Web sites to maintain a customized environment for each user and to make it easier for customers to purchase goods and services. DoubleClick also uses cookies to limit the number of times a customer sees an ad, which our customers have told us is important to them. We also use them to measure ad effectiveness on behalf of advertisers and Web sites with which DoubleClick does business. However, please be assured that until, and unless, a person chooses to provide personally identifiable information to a Web site, DoubleClick has no way to know their identity. All DoubleClick knows is that a computer's browser is visiting the site. Finally, we want you to know that DoubleClick does create profiles about consumers solely in an attempt to deliver ads that the user may be interested in viewing. Again, DoubleClick does not create a profile about any user unless that consumer has received notice and the opportunity to opt out from such profiling. Moreover, DoubleClick does not create profiles that contain sensitive information such as a consumer's medical information. Consumers can absolutely choose not to accept DoubleClick cookies or to receive ads tailored to their personal information by opting out at DoubleClick's Web site at http://www.doubleclick.net/privacy_policy/privacy. htm. We hope that you will take a minute to read the complete discussion of what information DoubleClick does collect and how it's used. Please visit our privacy policy on our Web site at http://www.doubleclick.net/privacy_policy/. The page also provides you with the opportunity to opt out from DoubleClick's cookies. If you need more information about DoubleClick please feel free to contact us at 212-683-0001. Again, thank you for contacting us with your concerns. We hope that this letter has helped to clear them up and that you will contact us if you need more information. Sincerely, DoubleClick, Inc. (NASDAQ: DCLK) http://www.doubleclick.net DoubleClick is pleased to announce that this December marks our move to the new ClickCity headquarters at 450 W. 33rd (between 9th and 10th Avenues). ClickCity will house over 500 employees across several floors including a roof deck over looking the Hudson and the ClickCity Sky Basketball Court. To learn more about DoubleClick please visit http//www.doubleclick.net.
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
Your logic is far from accurate.
'Some kid' hacked an encryption algorithm so that he could play his DVD's on his machine, thereby going around the brand-forcing done to him by a company that sought to prevent him from READING (not copying) a DVD.
DoubleClick is taking personal information (name, address, credit history, purchase history, phone number), and using it for their own purposes, and LYING to people, saying that they do NOT take it.
Two completely different situations. I don't know HOW you jumped to this conclusion, unless you work for the MPAA or something.
-Elthia
((Irrelevant. He did it without permission))
Do I need permission to enlarge the chest of my clothes to fit my bosom? I thought not. I bought 'em, I can make them fit.
((Riiiiight. That's why they give you an option to turn it off. ))
You don't. They say they will not send you any OTHER cookies. They don't say anything about the information they have ALREADY TAKEN.
I'm ignoring the snide personal insult, on grounds that it has nothing to do with this discussion.
-Elthia
This is all well and good, but don't the Pentium IIIs have a "thumbprint" that allows for them to see what we're doing? I think that that is much more dangerous than what Double Click is being charged with, but that's just me.
Given that most internet users would not have the first clue about where to go to opt out or even that they COULD opt out, DoubleClick (and other demographic-collecting companies) should only collect that data which is available without help from cookies (ip addresses, browser versions...).
I'm just wondering how many companies do exactly what DoubleClick does, that is collecting information about their users. I would like to believe that there aren't many, but most likely all of them do it, in one way or another.
:P It never hurt me, so I don't care.
The real question to be answered imho is wether this data-collecting is a bad thing or we should't even care.
In my case, Rogers@home has the information about my box, but it's the stuff that I told them. They're thinking I'm running NT.
But how can someone decide which are cases in which it really matters? Any ideeas? For me it's a really important issue, because I can't spend all my time making sure if my privacy is respected or not.
Search on DoubleClick INc. All the executives and major shareholders can be found there. Then lets find their email addresses on yahoo or whereever and let them know they suck. I pulled up who the key executives, how much they make ,etc... It is below. Lets post this stuff and let the executives know how it feels. ################################################## ############ KEVIN J. O'CONNOR CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER DOUBLECLICK INC. 41 MADISON AVENUE, 32ND FLOOR NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10010 (212) 683-0001 DEPENDENCE ON KEY PERSONNEL The Company's future success depends, in significant part, upon the continued service of its key technical, sales and senior management personnel, particularly Kevin J. O'Connor, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Kevin P. Ryan, President and Chief Financial Officer, Dwight A. Merriman, Chief Technical Officer, Wenda Harris Millard, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales, John L. Heider, Vice President of Engineering, and Barry M. Salzman, Vice President, International, none of whom has entered into an employment agreement with the Company. The loss of the services of one or more of the Company's key personnel could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business, results of operations and financial condition. The Company's future success also depends on its continuing ability to attract and retain highly qualified technical, sales and marketing, customer support, financial and accounting, and managerial personnel. Competition for such personnel in the Internet industry is intense, and there can be no assurance that the Company will be able to retain its key personnel or that it can attract, assimilate or retain other highly qualified personnel in the future. The Company has from time to time in the past experienced, and expects to continue to experience in the future, difficulty in hiring and retaining candidates with appropriate qualifications. See "Management". The Company was formed in January 1996 through the contribution of assets by Kevin J. O'Connor, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, Dwight A. Merriman, the Company's Chief Technical Officer, and the DoubleClick Division of Poppe Tyson, a subsidiary of Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt, Inc. ("Poppe Tyson"). The Company has grown from 13 employees as of March 31, 1996 to 171 employees as of December 1, 1997. From January 23, 1996 (inception) through May 1996, the Company's operating activities related primarily to developing the DART technology and the DoubleClick Network, and recruiting personnel. During the same period, substantially all of the Company's revenues resulted from Internet advertising sales on a commission basis on behalf of the Netscape and Excite Web sites. For the period from January 23, 1996 (inception) through December 31, 1996, such commissions constituted 16.5% of the Company's revenues. All ads sold on behalf of the Netscape and Excite Web sites were delivered directly by such entities, as their Web sites were not on the DoubleClick Network. The Company no longer arranges for the placement of advertisements on a commission basis. MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS AND OTHER KEY EMPLOYEES The executive officers and directors and other key employees of the Company, and their ages and positions are as follows: NAME AGE POSITION - -------------------------------------------------- --- ----- -------------------------------------------------- --- Kevin J. O'Connor.................................... 36 Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors Kevin P. Ryan........................................ 34 President and Chief Financial Officer Dwight A. Merriman................................... 29 Chief Technical Officer and Director Wenda Harris Millard................................. 43 Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales Stephen R. Collins................................... 32 Controller and Assistant Secretary John L. Heider....................................... 40 Vice President of Engineering Barry M. Salzman..................................... 34 Vice President, International David N. Strohm(1)................................... 49 Director Mark E. Nunnelly(1).................................. 39 Director W. Grant Gregory(1).................................. 56 Director KEVIN J. O'CONNOR has served as the Company's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors since its inception in January 1996. From December 1995 until January 1996, Mr. O'Connor served as Chief Executive Officer of Internet Advertising Network ("IAN"), an Internet advertising company which he founded. From September 1994 to December 1995, Mr. O'Connor served as Director of Research for Digital Communications Associates, a data communications company (now Attachmate Corporation), and from April 1992 to September 1994, as its Chief Technical Officer and Vice President, Research. From its inception in May 1983 until its sale in April 1992, Mr. O'Connor served as Vice President, Research of Intercomputer Communications Corp., a software development company. Mr. O'Connor received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. KEVIN P. RYAN has served as the Company's Chief Financial Officer since June 1996 and as President since July 1997. From January 1994 to June 1996, Mr. Ryan served as Senior Vice President, Business and Finance for United Media, a licensing and syndication company representing comics, columnists and wire services to over 2,000 newspapers around the world. From April 1991 to December 1993, Mr. Ryan served as Senior Manager, Finance for EuroDisney, and from August 1985 to September 1989, Mr. Ryan was an investment banker for Prudential Investment Corporation in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Mr. Ryan received his B.A. in Economics from Yale University and his M.B.A. from Insead. DWIGHT A. MERRIMAN has served as the Company's Chief Technical Officer since February 1996, and served as its Vice President, Engineering from the Company's inception in January 1996 until February 1996. Mr. Merriman has served as a Director of the Company since its inception. From December 1990 until August 1995, Mr. Merriman was a software engineer for Attachmate Corporation. Mr. Merriman received his B.S. in Systems Analysis from Miami (Ohio) University. WENDA HARRIS MILLARD has served as the Company's Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales since October 1997, and served as the Company's Executive Vice President, Marketing and Programming from July 1996 to October 1997. From August 1994 to July 1996, Ms. Harris Millard served 41 as President and Group Publisher of SRDS, a marketing and media information company. From July 1993 to July 1994, Ms. Harris Millard served as Senior Vice President and Publisher of Family Circle Magazine. From June 1992 to July 1993, Ms. Harris Millard served as Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of Adweek Magazines, and from 1987 to June 1992, Ms. Harris Millard served as Publisher for Adweek Magazine. Ms. Harris Millard received her B.A. in English from Trinity College and her M.B.A. from Harvard University. STEPHEN R. COLLINS has served as the Company's Controller since January 1997 and as Assistant Secretary since June 1997. From October 1992 to January 1997, Mr. Collins served in a variety of financial positions for Colgate-Palmolive Company, a consumer products company, most recently as Associate Financial Director of Colgate-Palmolive Romania. From July 1988 to October 1992, Mr. Collins was an auditor for Price Waterhouse LLP, a public accounting firm. Mr. Collins received his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Alabama. BARRY M. SALZMAN has served as the Company's Vice President, International since February 1997. From August 1994 to January 1997, Mr. Salzman served as President of BMS Associates, Inc., a consulting firm. From June 1993 to July 1994, Mr. Salzman served as an associate for AEA Investors, Inc., a principal investment firm. From June 1989 to June 1993, Mr. Salzman served as an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm. Mr. Salzman received his B.S. in Business from the University of Cape Town and his M.B.A. from Harvard University. JOHN L. HEIDER has served as the Company's Vice President of Engineering since March 1996. From June 1989 to March 1996, Mr. Heider served in various engineering capacities, including Staff Engineer and Senior Engineer, for Attachmate Corporation. Mr. Heider received his B.A. in Fine Arts from Wright State University. DAVID N. STROHM has served as a Director of the Company since June 1997. Since 1980, Mr. Strohm has been an employee of Greylock Management Corporation, a venture capital group ("Greylock"), and he is a general partner of several venture capital funds affiliated with Greylock. Mr. Strohm currently serves as a director of Banyan Systems, Inc., a software and computer peripherals company, and Legato Systems, Inc., a data storage management software company. Mr. Strohm received his B.A. from Dartmouth and his M.B.A. from Harvard University. Mr. Strohm was named to the Board of Directors pursuant to an agreement which will terminate upon the closing of the offering. MARK E. NUNNELLY has served as a Director of the Company since June 1997. Since 1990, Mr. Nunnelly has served as a Managing Director of Bain Capital, a venture capital group. Mr. Nunnelly currently serves as a Director of Stream International Inc., a computer software and technical support company, E-data Systems, a digital commerce company, SR Research, a credit risk assessment technology company, The Learning Company, an educational software company, and Dade International, a health care company. Mr. Nunnelly received his B.A. from Centre College and his M.B.A. from Harvard University. Mr. Nunnelly was named to the Board of Directors pursuant to an agreement which will terminate upon the closing of the offering. W. GRANT GREGORY has served as a Director of the Company since its inception in January 1996. Since 1988, Mr. Gregory has served as Chairman of Gregory & Hoenemeyer, Inc., a merchant banking firm. In 1987, Mr. Gregory served as Chairman of the Board of Touche Ross & Company, an accounting firm (now Deloitte & Touche). Mr. Gregory currently serves as a director of AMBAC Financial Group, a financial services company, HCIA Inc., a health care information company, and Inacom Corporation, a technology management services company. Mr. Gregory received his bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska. 42 NAME AND PRINCIPAL POSITION(1) SALARY OPTIONS COMPENSATION - -------------------------------------------------- -------- ----------------- ------------------ -------------- Kevin J. O'Connor Chief Executive Officer................................. $ 126,250 -- $ 30,000(3) Kevin P. Ryan President and Chief Financial Officer................... 152,500 220,000 -- Wenda Harris Millard Executive Vice President, Marketing and Sales............................................. .. 180,000 -- -- John L. Heider Vice President of Engineering........................... 101,280 29,000 -- Barry M. Salzman Vice President, International........................... 105,136 52,500 --
Kevin J. O'Connor(2)....................................... ...... 2,654,248 21.2% 17.9% Bain Capital, Inc.(3)........................................... . 2,182,060 17.7 14.9 Mark E. Nunnelly(4)....................................... ....... 2,182,060 17.7 14.9 Voting Trustee Committee(5)...................................... 1,493,854 12.1 10.2 Greylock Management Corp.(6)..................................... 1,246,884 10.1 8.5 David N. Strohm(7)......................................... ...... 1,246,884 10.1 8.5 ABS Capital Partners II, L.P.(8)................................. 1,246,883 10.1 8.5 Dwight A. Merriman(9)....................................... ..... 1,219,692 9.8 8.3 Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt, Inc.(10)...................... 779,302 6.3 5.3 Canaan Partners(11)...................................... ........ 519,640 4.2 3.6 Weiss, Peck & Greer, L.L.C.(12).................................. 519,484 4.2 3.6 Venrock Associates(13).................................... ....... 519,483 4.2 3.6 W. Grant Gregory(14)....................................... ...... 494,949 4.0 3.4 Wenda Harris Millard(15)....................................... .. 30,000 * * Kevin P. Ryan(16).......................................... ...... 20,000 * * John L. Heider(17)........................................ ....... 9,000 * * Barry A. Salzman(18)....................................... ...... -- * * All directors and executive officers as a group (10 persons)(19)...................................... ............. 8,563,647 68.0 57.5
I work for an ecomerce site. We are no longer using double click because of the recent fiasco, I'm not in charge of finding either a banner server or service. And from my reasearch i've noticed that alot of them are using this type of tracking options. most notabley real medias server http://www.realmedia.com/software.html I understand why companies would want to do this but they should make it more apparant.
Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this is the war room..
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
well, that's done, dude. they now think i'm you! of course, it's just gonna look like you read slashdot twice as much now, since that's all i do! :)
Looks like the lawyer is pursuing the "class action" angle. Excellent. Where do I sign up. DoubleCLick sucks ass. Oh yeah, use the link on Slashdot to set cookie to id=OPT_OUT MuchosGracias.
I got a doubleclick.net cookie from freshmeat. What's the deal here? Whose side is freshmeat on?
From their website: WebWasher is a powerful filter program for Web pages, originally developed by Siemens: it is installed on your PC or server as an add-on to your browser. Unwanted content - such as advertising - is not even loaded via the network. WebWasher also avoids unnecessary reloading of web objects and de-animates images. This saves you up to 45% of the data which are transmitted. Your browser displays Web pages practically free of advertising.
Just one moment there ya foul mouthed pilgrim... to enter court is to surrender yourself to the whims of a trial court judge. No one who has had anything to do with "the legal system" would be so foolish as to describe it as a "justice system". Sure, it is often a lovely ballet, with reasoned arguements and studious points of law...if you have deep pockets. For most it is a place to be avoided at all costs... or some incompetitant loudmouth will walk away with your money with a shrug and a sigh. Tsk, it goes that way sometimes.
Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, the spritual forces of evil
Actually, that's a policy change in response to the lawsuit. At the time, official McD's corporate policy required that coffed be kept at around 180 degrees.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
echo 127.0.0.2 ad.doubleclick.net >> /etc/hosts
it works better if you don't have a web server on your pc, and set port 80 to refuse connections
see man ipchains on RH6.1 too for another solution
Usually courts must award money, unless potential for great harm is shown. In a corporate injury case, even the McDonalds coffee case (if you think the case is frivilous, look at the facts), the judge can't burn the McDonald's CEO crotch. By with a $3 million dollar verdict, they now warn people and don't keep the coffee at scalding temperatures. Most other companies do the same.
In China, to insure Y2K compliance of airlines, the CEOs in China had to be flying for the changeover. Here, in the USA, the threat of large a judgment make some companies "do the right thing."
This is not to say that all lawsuits are valid. Companies, such as Mattel use lawsuits to beat down the little guy. People also file friviolous lawsuits.
Is their a lawyer who will sue the Girl Scouts for me? I ate three boxes of their Thin Mints and did't lose a pound. :)
Fight Spammers!
on pay TV, you still get the trailing credits or music chopped off and replaced with station ads ;-(
and on video tapes that you rent, you also have ads at the beginning. usually about 10 minutes worth.
so I guess with the commercial mass entertainment media, there's just no getting away from the ads.
(and I still find it hard to believe that companies find advertising worthwhile. I am usually so turned off by ads, I make a special effort not to patronize the advertisers.)
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
"companies are morons.
companies will sue for anything. [...]"
so it seems these days that neither private citizens nor big businesses can get along anymore. RIAA sues napster and its users. DVDCA sues "the internet" and its users. a private citizen tries to use privacy (PGP) and the government wants to take them (and their privacy) away.
with all the rights of the individual being taken away these days, its no wonder there's a heightened sense of wanting to get revenge at governments and big businesses.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
DVDCA wants their money. all of it. and they'll tolerate nothing less. and they have "money/guns/lawyers" to back up their greed.
I could go on to mention other abusive companies but I'll save the b/w and space - I think you can see my point without a huge listing of abusive corporate entities.
so this individual is exercising their right to greed. it seems that invididuals can learn from the example that big business has set for them...
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Yes, I've spilled drinks on myself, have spilled coffee. I still have a scar from burning myself on a lightbulb (at the time, I thought 'damn, that was stupid of me). And I remember being burned by spattering grease too. But would you have coffee served cold, sue a lightbulb company if they couldn't produce an incandescent bulb that didn't get hot, or pass a law that bacon can't be cooked because grease might splatter (or if one cooks it, the producer is responsible because it CAN be cooked.)
I agree, lawyers can be good and useful. But many have slid the slippery slope and made it a lottery for people, taking their percentage of course. The trial lawyers are some of the largest lobbiest and campaign contributers to make sure there's no reform.
People do dumb things. And in the past, they took responsibility for their own stupidity. Today they do something stupid that's their own fault, and sue instead.
I wrote a nice little GPLed utility for taking the bad cookies out of your cookies file while leaving the good ones there.
It is called Cookie Cutter and you can get it at http://www.koaton.org/cookiecutter/. I am using it right now!
Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin.
A choice of masters is not freedom
>People believe in their rights. If your grandma got scalded severely from coffee
>and had to have 40,000 dollars worth of skin grafts and medical treatment...
>Would you call her stupid for not knowing that the coffee was hot? Or would you
If she was in a moving car and removed the cover on a cup of scalding hot coffee and set the open cup in her lap, YES I would consider that stupid. DUH!
Of course, the lack of permision required to put cookies on a system works both ways. Let's play a game called "How many computers can you Doubleclickproof in a day?" I'v already gotten all my relatives, the school labs, and every pc Ihave access to at work.
What really sucks is that I tend, at work, to erase everything regarding internet history from my work pc every night as I leave. Now I've got to leave the $#@%! cookie there.
Judge Pag, the Learned, Impartial, and Very Relaxed
My reaction to this crap is to declare SOA for doubleclick.net. If they can collect and disseminate data about me without my consent then I reserve the right to block them from any access to me whatsoever. I reserve the right to block anyone from accessing my domain, network or other resources for any reason, or no reason at all.
If you happen to run windows9x/NT (like, at work) it might be worth checking out the proxomitron, which works just like IJB.
http://www.proxomitron.cjb.net
Apart form killing ads and cookies from selected sites you can kill most popup windows and other annoyances..
It's a bit trickier to config then ijb but comes with a good default setup
Shameless promo =)
sigfault
i wrote this in 1996..inspired by doubleclick's online publicity back then: Target Let doubleclit.net bring your target to you. Your target audience - right along with the rest of the world - is rushing onto the Internet. And, you know they're there. But, the trick is finding them. They're racing through thousands of Web sites already in existence and touring the hundreds of new sites being added every day. That's why advertising on the Net has been so hit-and-miss. And, why doubleclit.net, the Internet Advertising Network was created... doubleclit.net brings your target to you. As Targeted As You Want To Be. Okay I'm just about to kill this guy I ordered. And then all of a sudden I wonder what the fuck I'm doing with him. Kinda ruins the moment. doubleclit.net brings everyone together, instantly. Building one to one relationships millions at a time. He's no dog, granted, and he's suitably young and all that, he obviously doesn't need to shave very often, but then there's this other stuff that the company didn't mention. The heart of doubleclit.net is its Internet Profile Database. This database was compiled from a wide array of sources and has a built-in ability to learn and grow. It calls for some pretty sophisticated data-crunching on our part, but the results are incredible. Like his hair - long black ringlets tumbling down from a bad crew cut, and that shirt, blue flannelette with lemon checks. I mean, he's some kind of wog *bogan* for god's sake. No silver smooth river boy this. Looking too closely at him brings on a wave of nausea. I think about stripping him. Boys like this are better butt naked. Excellent opportunity for growth and excitement. So I'm considering how to do him. With that big bitch knife? Or the small mean bedside blade? The double reinforced extra tensile wire? A bullet to his sorry brain engraved with a personalised dedication from me to him - have a nice death, asshole? My resources are limited but effective. First strike capabilities. Delivery guaranteed or your life back. Will "immediately" be soon enough? He kinda stumps me though cos I'm just not used to this kinda generic lowboy. Talk about a blast from the best-forgotten past. Rough trade usually has *some* sense of street style, knows when the black (black!) jeans are just too too tight and the boots too fuckin' pointy and sad. This cunt won't win any fashion awards that's for sure. I refuse to contemplate his tastes in music. The Network represents a broad range of users including; investors, business professionals, college students, women, consumers, gamers and sports enthusiasts. And bogans obviously. I thought this was a *selective* service? The rates would suggest that it is. The great demographics of Web users - According to a recent study, the 17.6 million people using the Web in the U.S. and Canada tend to be young, upscale, educated professionals with a household income over $80,000. Yeah, right. Like this guy earns 80K. In his dreams maybe. One-stop Internet shopping with fully-automated delivery of advertising spots with guaranteed "eyeball" exposure, tracking and reporting confirmed. Whatever. The asshole's moaning now, he's starting to come to. If only he knew what his voice does to me. At least some part of my system is still operating on automatic. I'm tracking his gradual awareness of his predicament. He notices that his feet and wrists are bound. Can see the knife reflected in my eyes. I'm bored with looking at him. My cunt's wet enough, but my imagination is hardly engaged. Need to sharpen my focus. You know when enough is enough. Still can't decide how to kill him. Strange, I'm never usually this indecisive. My tight template of desire has been corrupted by that haircut. I can't be bothered fixing it up myself. That's not what I paid for. I feel totally ripped off. Maybe I should just return him. Hate to waste fresh meat but . . . . You know when enough is enough
[all women are ghosts and should rightly be feared]
I know that I can opt out of Double Click's cookies by either not accepting them or accepting their opt out cookie, but what I really want to do is remove any and all info about me from their database. I'm sure they've used other methods to collect info on me, and I want it removed. What are my options?
-D
I like the fact that you have to explicitly ask them NOT to spy on you.
In return, I will set up a spy camera in the homes of everyone who works for the comapany unless they respond to this post telling me that they want to opt out.
I tried the Opt out thing with Mozilla (M13), and when I checked the cookies, I had two from doubleclick:
One ws called id, with a value of "A"
The other was had like a 16 digit alphaneumeric name, with similar content.
Anyone else see anything similar?
Sad, really.
these regulations will have an unintended consequence -- drive these businesses offshore.
The best thing to do is to keep a public list of companies that do this. I have already blackholed doubleclick in my DNS caching server. I will do the same to any company that wants to violate my privacy. To me, doubleclick ads look remarkably like the broken image icon.
I'm certain that they are not exactly crying over my action, but if enough people do that (especially if ISPs do that as a service to their customers) they will be hurt, and moving offshore won't help them.
Yes, I do believe that it violates certain privacy laws, but I don't think that's the case if whatever forms they use to gather that information have an opt-out or opt-in procedure. The customer must be made aware of this information exchange.
As I understand it, they SORT OF let the customer know, but it's like in the Hitchiker's Guide, it's on file in the planning office (in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory in the basement. The light had gone out and so had the stairs). In other words, the notification is in fine print in the privacy statement which is several pages deep.
For the IE users out there, if you do a search on your computer for 'doubleclick', it will find all the cookie files associated with that domain (IE stores each cookie in a separate file). Just edit the files to say 'OPT_OUT' or delete them altogether.
I say put in 'OPT_OUT', since they can always reestablish the cookies. At least this way, if your information does end up in your stash, you can point to your cookie file and say, "See, it says, 'OPT_OUT'!"
2) if they make a deal with major sites that use banners from doubleclick where the sites relay personal information submited to them back to doubleclick, the name->cookie mapping may be done.
It's number two. They have setup limited partnerships with various companies to have that information relayed back to them. Yes, I do believe that it violates certain privacy laws, but I don't think that's the case if whatever forms they use to gather that information have an opt-out or opt-in procedure. The customer must be made aware of this information exchange.
personally, I support something like this:
I can't go to the "opt out" page because I've told my browser to never load any URL that comes from doubleclick. 8-} It's easy and works on UNIX,
:-)
Windows, and Macs with IE5 or NS2-5. yes, and right now I can't go to your no-ads page because Junkbuster sees "ads" in the url and tosses it
Junkbuster works like a dream, it's a really tight little program, and it even seems to cure Netscapes horrible DNS hangs. It comes as a rpm, exe, whatever, and also compiles from source in a few seconds, with a raw makefile that doesn't need configuring. One obvious improvement: instead of just giving you a link to the reason why it tossed a page, it should give you a "go there anyway" link as well. I'll see what I can do...
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
There were no cookies, spam, or ads. The information was accurate, up-to-date and well-moderated. The conversations were ALL on-topic and intelligent. It was called compuserve. The web underbid it.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
72202,142 myself -- been the same since 1979 (pretty good considering I was born in '75!).
Former Sysop/AssistOp -- Adobe; Comics; Artists
Unfortunately folks jumped ship to save a few dollars a month so we could spend hours longer searching for the same information. Now I'm on email lists that have 10 times as much noise, no threading and half the information of the old fora. But I guess that's progress!...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I've recently made efforts to decrypt the cookie file format for IE, and I can say what most of the fields are.
id
This is the cookie name. Don't trust any cookie with a name of "id", "user" or names containing these words if they are from a site you don't know or don't trust. It's a tracking cookie. Delete all such cookies on sight (unless they are from a site you trust, like slashdot), and if possible block access from the site via your firewall.
OPT_OUT
This is the cookie value.
doubleclick.net/
This is the domain and path for the cookie. This one means the cookie will be sent to all sites with a domain of doubleclick.net.
0
Don't know what this is, any ideas?
1468938752
31583413
This is the expiration time of the cookie. More details on the format later. When you decrypt this time, you'll find that it's about 2030 or so. Most sites that push cookies at you with an expiration time this far in the future are not to be trusted.
776923520
29321255
This is the creation time of the cookie.
*
I don't know what this is either, any ideas?
The times are a 64-bit number. Take the first number, add the second number * 2^32, and divide by (I think) 10 million. You get number of milliseconds since about 1/1/1601. I have been having a little trouble determining the exact epoch (time when number = 0) of this number, because Microsoft seem to be deliberately obfuscating this information. For example, if you export cookies in Netscape format, the exported time is wrong.
If you want to fake this date and time for any reason, such as destroying any usefulness of tracking you by the creation time, then note that the date and time is always exactly divisible by (I think 10 million), with no remainder.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
I say that you DO have to regulate this trash. If you can't keep off-shore folfs from doing it then just keep off-shore sites off our internet. Place a great big firewall up and regualte what goes through it.
You really want the government telling you who you can and cannot connect to? Personally, that idea scares me. For one, it is just about the same thing as censorship. Sorry, but I don't want the government in that business.
You can setup your own proxy server or firewall to prevent such privacy invasions, however. I recommend The Internet Junkbuster; I set it up in like ten minutes the other day and it works great.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Depends. If collecting this information for later commercial use is a crime, then using doubleclick for banners would likewise be a crime. (Contracting for a criminal act is itself a crime, outside of conspiracy, etc)
:)
Sure, eventually all the big businesses could go offshore, but users still need homepages, and small sites still need banners, which would mean that there would be a market for a legal banner site.
And, think of the fun, if they were offshore in such a way that our laws didn't apply to them, theirs wouldn't to us. A free site to hack on, and they'd have no legal grounds to stop you unless you broke laws of your host country, and I doubt the government would go out of their way to help them.
I'm with the other poster in this group, I've filtered out banners I don't like. I use junkbuster (www.junkbuster.com) instead of misrouting the IP because the browser stops looking, but otherwise, I do the same.
Yeah, if foobar.com uses doubleclick and doesn't make any money off of me, wah. And if they go under because of it? Boo fucking hoo.
If companies go under because they get boycotted for being sleezy it'll just open up a place for a new company. And if they use a banner company that doesn't suck, maybe people won't blacklist them, and they'll make a buck. If not, there'll be another right behind them willing to try.
By your logic we should all go watch movies now, because the MPAA needs money, and if we don't support them, there will never be any entertainment again.
I simply fill out a different card every time I've got a few minutes, with whatever fake info I want, then when I'm shopping with friends, I give them my extra cards if they don't already have one. Share the wealth.
The companies that do this are sleezy, because they usually jack the non-club price of hot items up, forcing non-participating shoppers to either go to two stores, pay very high prices, or sign over their privacy.
And I like how the poster you (the poster I'm responging to) talked about a free plane trip every $2000... How about a free trip every $20k, and then only to certain destinations, for certain times, etc. That's how airmiles cards work.
Speaking of bum deals, I received some gift certificates to the movies for my birthday and when I went to see James Bond:TWINE, I was told it was a premeire night and my gift certificates weren't any good. So I gave them hell about refusing to honor a contract. They didn't say anywhere that the gift certificates weren't valid for everything, except on the gift certificate itself, which you didn't see till you paid. Gave them hell for a while until they backed down. Freaking good for nothing assholes. As soon as they have your money they make it clear how much they care.
Excellent, thank you. I had heard about junkbuster but never really looked into it much, figuring it would interfere with the proxy server here at work. It chains from my browser to the JB proxy to my company firewall just great. Took me 10 minutes to get it all working and add the cites I want to let cookies in (slashdot) and to block all the sites I don't want ads from (adfu, doubleclick, etc).
Thank you.
First off, you sound like an ambulance chaser trying to justify his decision to leech off the teet of the productive portions of society.
Secondly, you must not be overly educated if you don't know that most of the upper crust, semi-working class (politians, CEOs, etc.) have more vile mouths than your average hardened criminal.
Thirdly, posting as an AC is no more in public than hiding in your closet.
Fourthly, lawsuits are not particularily indicative of freedom, unless you mean the freedom to fuck over anyone who has less money than yourself. Or the freedom to run roughshod over the rights of others because they don't have enough money to stick it to you in a court of law.
hosts file:
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.net
Bingo! no more problems, no more crappy ads, etc. I've been doing this with every banner provider I can find. However, can anyone come up with a good reason why this is a bad idea? (other than 'hope you don't work for doubleclick?')
If he lives in NY, NY, he might be one of the six people listed here. Keeping with the spirit of Doubleclick, you could just randomly choose one of them and have that person's privacy royally invaded.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
echo:>cookies.txt
attrib +r cookies.txt
---
"We don't think it's an issue," said Kevin Ryan, DoubleClick's president.
DoubleClick says there is no demand for prior consent. For instance, of the 75 million people per month who view DoubleClick network ads, only ten per day elect to remove the company's cookie, which tracks surfing habits, from their computers.
"I've been very active on the online privacy issues with the FTC since 1997," he added. "We spent a lot of time on this in discussing the merger--if consumers are not happy, neither one of us has a business."
You might be right. Now tell these same people that if they wear this tracking bug around every time they shop at the mall and they'd get a free round-trip plane ticket to the destination of their choice for every $2000 they spent, you'd have about 90 people lining up to get their shoes bugged.
Far fetched? Not at all. Our local mall does this already. Of course they call it "Mallperks" and you have to show a card to get your reward (the free plane ticket was just an example), but people seem to be willing to trade their privacy for a few extra gewgaws. And they do it even though anyone with a room-temperature IQ should know that all that information is going into a big database somewhere that They are going to use to know everything about you, including what games you play, what kind of makeup you buy, what toys your kids play with and probably how often you have sex.
Needless to say I don't have one of these cards.
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
BTW, I tried DoubleDlick's opt-out script using Netscape 4.7 under Linux (Gnome, Redhat 6.1) and it didn't work. Maybe something just glitched, but I ended up editing cookies manually.
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
The problem is that there is very little acting to remove bad law, and thus they just pile up, clogging the system.
Force every federal law to stand for review every 10 years, and watch the volume of law shrink.
I also say that all laws ought to be required to stand for 1 year public scrutiny, then be voted on as a straight yes/no vote. Any modifications restart the clock.
Basically, let's bring the OSS methodology of "publish early, publish often" to law.
www.eFax.com are spammers
This is the STUPIDEST way to handle this I can think of! "Hmm, I've set my shirt on fire. Perhaps I can run outside and dowse myself in something cold, like liquid oxygen..."
You don't get this stupid by accident. It takes bad genetics, years of practice, and chemical assistance. I've blocked DC for years on my firewall, now I know I made the right decision.
www.eFax.com are spammers
"if that user has agreed to receive personally-tailored ads"
What that means is you would have to read every privacy statement of every website you visit, and if even one mentions something in the fine print about viewing "personally tailored ads", DoubleClick can identify you and your web browsing habits.
The odds are pretty good that you have "agreed" to that somewhere, since DoubleClick has such a large percentage of the banner ad business.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Here is where I read about it.
And you are correct about second level domains sharing cookies. It depends on how you set the cookie. If you were to set it to "somerandomsite.com" it can be shared. If you were to set it to "www.somerandomsite.com" only www.somerandomsite.com can read it.
Here is the reference I use anytime I need to use cookies: Cookie FAQ
penguinicide... when jumping out a window just won't do.
Now that's a lawsuit I will stand behind, as it protects consumer rights rather than trampling them.
... feel free to flame or add.
I don't know when it started, but I certainly didn't give anyone express permission to buy and sell my life's history as a consumer, just so they could "target" the junk mail and telephone spam that they insist on hurling at me. These giant databases of consumer information are sketchy in and of themselves, but when they are combined with what I consider browsing surveillance, they very well could cross the line into corporate big brother behavior.
If we have the freedom not to be illicitly watched by the government in our private lives (without cause), wouldn't that freedom extend to restrict the behavior of corporations?
Additionally, if someone is indiscriminately watching my habits online, how close does that get to wiretapping?
Just rambling
good. fast. cheap. (pick any two, you can't have all three)
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Maybe now, maybe not for long.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
(hmmm.. the [preview] button should be be the default in the comment form, not [submit] :)
:-)
have doubleclick explained how they are going to make this thing happen? i mean, yes they have a database with cookie 'movements' and yes, they have a database with names. but unless they have some way to link these two together, there is no way to make the name db usefull.
there are two ways they can do the name->cookie mapping.
1) if you give them your name, they obviously got what they need, so avoid that
2) if they make a deal with major sites that use banners from doubleclick where the sites relay personal information submited to them back to doubleclick, the name->cookie mapping may be done.
but i belive #2 violates some privacy laws.
larva
-- gunzip-howto.tar.gz
This is the doubleclick cookie off my Win98 machine:
id
OPT_OUT
doubleclick.net/
0
1468938752
31583413
776923520
29321255
*
Anyone else who opted out, do you have these EXACT same numbers? Seems weird that my optout gives me random numbers....
This is my host file - posted because everyone is missing a few servers
here are a the major ad corps
127.0.0.1 adforce.imgis.com
127.0.0.1 ads.enliven.com
127.0.0.1 Ogilvy.ngadcenter.net
127.0.0.1 oz.valueclick.com
Double click below...
127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad2.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad3.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad4.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad5.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad6.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad7.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad8.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad9.doubleclick.net
you might want to add in these for when they grow...
127.0.0.1 ad10.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad11.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad12.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad13.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad14.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad15.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad16.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad17.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad18.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad19.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad20.doubleclick.net
Aaron "PooF" Matthews
E-mail: aaron@fish.pathcom.com
To mail me remove "fish."
ICQ: 11391152
Quote: "Success is the greatest revenge"
When I've heard people criticize cookies, this has always been the horror story that they theorized about. My reply has always been that if someone was stupid enough to try it, they would be instantly sued by privacy groups.
Hopefully this lawsuit will have the intended effect, and he we will have a precedent set that it's illegal to do this type of tracking. Then hopefully (although I doubt it will happen) people will stop freaking about cookies.
Cookies are your friend. Cookies make web sites a whole lot simpler and more reliable.
--
Well, first I should say that I don't really care about market tracking that much. I'm just not that paranoid ("Diana, get your gun. The marketing police are trying to break down the door!"). I just opt out when I find out.
Second of all, they probably will just get a slap on the wrist and who cares? As long as they stop, I'm happy. I should point out that the women suffered no real financial damages.
Personally, I don't want them to "go out of business". I like web advertising. You know why? Because without it, a lot of web services that I enjoy using would cease to exist. Having some ads that take up a minuscule part of my screen is a small price to pay for these services.
Like Slashdot? Junkbuster just makes it harder for Slashdots to exist. You might try realizing that ads are what make a lot of these things possible, and show a little more appreciation and respect./P.
--
I don't like doubleclick. They iconify a disturbing trend: a big brother keeping track of your habbits. (For the sake of selling you crap, no less.)
This, however, is a stupid lawsuit. If the woman was genuinly concerned about privacy, she should do what many of us already do and filter out doubleclick before it arives at the browser.
This individual is looking to raid some deep pockets, and she has targeted doubleclick because they are disliked enough that she may not look greedy compared to them.
But this is still about greed. No, we don't like doubleclick, but is my enemy's enemy my friend?
One interesting thing about the lawsuit is that it is brought in California, by a California resident.
California is one of a handful of States which, by State Constitution, gives its residents more privacy rights than afforded to the U.S. at large by the U.S. Constitution. It is unclear from reporting I've seen so far whether this Plaintiff is claiming privacy rights under the California constitution, but I am a California lawyer, and I would think about it seriously.
The beauty of this would be that, if the Plaintiff does have a good case under California privacy law, then even if (hypothetically) she doesn't under federal law, as a practical matter DoubleClick would have to modify its behavior throughout the country, since it would be untenable for them to have one set of rules for California web users, another for everyone else.
you meant to say the cookies file, not the bookmarks.
It seems everyday I see more and more stories about a company doing something naughty, and then people sue them. Why is this? To get rich of course.
If you think about it for a moment, one person suing a company won't do much. True, it does take money out of their pockets, give them some bad PR and perhaps invites other lawsuits, but this accomplishes nothing in the long run.
What needs to be done is there should either be stricter laws against this kind of thing, or someone (dare I say the government?) should intervene. Personally, I perfer to see stronger privacy laws, but don't beleive it will ever happen due to lobbying by companies and senators thinking there are more "important things" that need to be done instead (such as government funded tests to see how fast ketchup flows. It's true.).
So, in the end, the question stands "What can you do to help?". Contact representatives in government and tell them how you feel about abuses such as this. Write, e-mail, fax, call, stop by, whatever it takes to make your voice heard. If you don't help make a difference, then you're just helping DoubleClick by keeping quiet.
A few people getting some money from a company won't help, but laws and speaking out against this sort of thing will.
The other danger with this is that with the all of the attention that this is getting could it be possable for other organizations to track you using double click's cookie?
--Hephaestus_Lee
"[Y]our wise men don't know how it feels to be thick as a brick." -- Ian Anderson
We could all just edit our double click cookie to be the same user id. Imagine the demographic of that user! One hell of a web surfer.
For anyone who is interested, a realplayer replay of the program should be available by tomorrow at http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnps02fm.cfm?MM=1&YY =2000&PrgID=5).
ln -s /dev/null cookies.txt
and it accomplishes the same thing. writes do go to RAM so that for the duration of the netscape session, cookies are readable, but when you exit and restart netscape, all cookies are gone! ;-)
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
then "cable tv" came about. it was a pay-to-access (or decode) service. and while there was some doubt that folks would actually pay for what they used to get for free, it soon took off in a big way. now, there are more than 10x pay stations compared to 'free' stations. (maybe even 100x if you have a BUD dish.)
so why can't the new internet learn from this example? I, for one, would gladly pay for actual factual real content just to avoid spam, ads, Blinkin'Gifs, JavaScript hacks and other such annoying nonsense.
but in return for my money, I'd want to be sure that my privacy is being protected. perhaps a contract that has, in essense, "if my personal information or viewing/browsing habits are ever recorded or exposed/sold, then $X dollars are to be refunded - plus damages - back to me". ie, a check and balance system of sorts. just to keep the sites honest.
end effect: sites would get paid, consumers' rights would not be abused and content would continue to exist. and freedom of competition would keep it all affordable.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I know and have worked for several companies, who when they set an "opt-out" cookie, actually still track you by IP and the "opt-out". Even on a dial up, you're still pretty vulnerable and with DSL or Cable, you're still tracked with extreme accuracy. Honestly Kids, while Layers are a big problem, Marketing screws are so evil they make Layers look like priests.
I can't go to the "opt out" page because I've told my browser to never load any URL that comes from doubleclick. 8-} It's easy and works on UNIX, Windows, and Macs with IE5 or NS2-5.
http://www.schooner.com/~loverso/no-ads/
(I also blackhole a slew of other "ad banner" servers; mostly those that serve cookies or animated images)
If you're using Netscape, you don't have to worry so much. First, edit the .netscape/bookmarks file. It's a text file. Delete all the lines that include doubleclick, or any other server that you don't know what it does.
Then set the bookmarks file to read-only.
This allows doubleclick and its ilk to set a cookie. But every time you re-start, it starts all over. So they get a little bit of data, but they can only trail you through one session.
Or would you rather trust those bastard's opt-out, we wouldn't do anything nasty, we're good guys farce?
We should setup a network of DNS resolvers (DNS nameservers that just resolve addresses) that have alternate entries for the hosts of ad servers. Thus those individuals who wish to not see banner ads and not have their consumer activities profiled, could simply avoid ever connecting to the offending servers. Anyone willing to help out?
This is one step in the right direction towards good Privacy standards.
Remember, when it comes to these 'marketing companies'....
How is it companies that you do business with are free to give any information you give them to a marketing company, but the marketing company will not give you information about *their* customers?
When I went to click on that opt-out link, I got a message saying the Internet JunkBuster had blocked that URL.
;-)
Aw, darn.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
... what I really want to do is remove any and all info about me from their database. I'm sure they've used other methods to collect info on me, and I want it removed. What are my options?
Unfortunately, that information was likely collected using perfectly legal means, and is thus their property. You can control how they use it (e.g., stopping them from calling you to sell you things), but not the fact that they have it. You can usually tell them not to rent or sell your name, but I believe the law isn't clear on your rights in such cases.
Check out the Data About You page at JunkBusters.com for more information about this sort of thing.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Actually, the fact that a society needs specialists to interpret for its members just about every one of its rules indicates to me, as an engineer, that the system has grown too unwieldy & complex (too many special cases, too many "conflicting" rules, etc). If I were in charge of the design of this system, I would be working to consolidate & simplify the system until it were more maintainable - this would mean that more people would be able to understand "the rules" by themselves, and wouldn't need lawyers except for the most complex cases.
Of course, I know that anybody who is benefiting strongly from the current state of the system (lawyers are a good example :) is going to strongly resist any attempt to change the system, even if changing the system would result in an overall improvement in the "happiness level" of the society. It's only when the forces of change are stronger than the forces of the status quo that a change will occur - and if the forces are severely polarized when a massive change occurs, then the fallout can cause major societal damage.
Well, the OPT-OUT thing is nice, but if you don't trust anyone (like me :P) you can use the following networks as masks in your ip filter (i'm just snipping out my rules from openbsd, but the ip networks are in there).
:P These seem to be all of them though.
block in quick on ne0 from 199.95.208.0/24 to any
block out quick on ne0 from any to 199.95.208.0/24
block in quick on ne0 from 199.95.207.0/24 to any
block out quick on ne0 from any to 199.95.207.0/24
block in quick on ne0 from 209.249.231.0/24 to any
block out quick on ne0 from any to 209.249.231.0/24
block in quick on ne0 from 204.253.104.0/24 to any
block out quick on ne0 from any to 204.253.104.0/24
block in quick on ne0 from 208.184.29.0/24 to any
block out quick on ne0 from any to 208.184.29.0/24
This seemed to be more reliable than using the doublclick.net network. But everytime i blocked on out they got back in through another spot
os.system("perl -e 'print \"My first Python Script.\"'")
Various Peoples, It seems taht everyone seems to take a real lax view of internet tracking because the average user can't even tell its happening. I bet if you ask 100 people in the mall if you could put a traking bug on thier shoe so you could tell where the went and what stores they bought stuff at and then catalog thier names and addresses in a huge database (with nothing in return)you would most likely recieve 100 no's. Now if people found out some place in the mall had secretly placed a tracking device on them and cataloged all of thier daily travels into a database I bet the place would be shutdown simply by the angry mob tearing the place apart.
Its about time those guys got taken down a peg or two. I've been filtering doubleclick out at my proxy server since I first noticed they were dropping cookies on each of their click-through ads. If you're after an easy way of blocking Doubleclick and others like them, check out Junkbusters They have filters for win95/98/nt and unix, as well as a generic faq on blocking cookies and banner ads.
--
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
Fuck this. I'm a lawyer, and it chafes my ass to see this godman stupid point made over and over again. Let me ask you this question: How many lawsuits do you think you saw in the Soviet Union?
I mean it. Lawsuits are a sign of freedom. They're a sign that the government has decided to leave as much as possible to the free market and the law of contract and tort, and not to come in with a big wet fucking nanny agency. Which of course still generates work for lawyers through a regulatory practice, but less open and less honest work.
Would you rather Big Fucking Brother came in and spent fifty fucking years drawing up a piece of legislation precisely specifiyng what information could and couldn't be collected? All stuffed with pork, and with a big-ass federal agency to enforce it? Or would you rather this was decided in terms of general principles of tort and property, in an open court?
Well, I've got news for you, dickhead, the second method involves lawsuits. And those lawsuits have to be argued by lawyers. And that means that lawyers get rich. Check out the alternative any time you grudge us our big fucken' payoff. We don't get stock options, you know.
If the woman has a case, she will win. If she's whining like a bitch, she won't. End of. It's like a free market, only it's better than a free market because the smartest lawyer with the best argument always wins. How many other industries are there where the best product always wins? Not software.
Lawsuits are freedom. That's why we have so many in America, and they have so many government agencies in Europe.
AC posting allows an educated professional like me to swear like a thug in public. I say fucken keep it.
For me, it's more than not wanting them tracking me. I don't want to support a company that tracks people. That's why I installed the Internet Junkbuster, and I have it set to block anything from doubelick.net.
The Internet Junkbuster is a non-caching proxy that you run on your local computer. You tell it URL's to block and sites that you want to allow cookies from. It's really great. I can deny ads from doubleclick and any other company, as well as anything else I feel like blocking. It supports regexes for those that want them. I can allow cookies from Slashdot and deny them from everyone else.
As with the US crypto export laws,
:) The
as with the EU privacy regulations
(where companies are not allowed to maintain
databases of customers or use such information for
focused marketing) and Texas's on again, off again
status as far as selling DMV information to
outside parties (Public Data)
and E-Banking (ebanking.com (luxembourg)),
and countless internet casinos and porn sites,
these regulations will have an unintended
consequence -- drive these businesses offshore.
No longer does the US and EU have a monopoly
on high-speed internet connectivity; it's possible
for any business selling valuable data illegal
in the US/EU to colocate a machine in a
less-regulated country, such as Anguilla, or
Costa Rica, or many others, employ a few locals
to maintain it, and pay admittedly higher rates
for satellite or undersea cable connectivity.
In exchange, pay lower or no taxes, have no
government interference in your business, etc.
Sure, this only makes sense for certain kinds of
data, data for which people are willing to pay
money, but that's the only interesting data,
anyway. When a T1 costs $100k/month, running
an online gambling site making $3m/month is a
lot better business than letting people
leech mp3s.
In the end, it's futile to try to restrict
businesses like this; all doubleclick would need
to do is contract with an offshore tracking
company, connected to the net over a 128kbps
satellite link, something they could set up
for $20k/month, and put that machine anywhere
in the world -- even on the back of a boat.
If they need help, they should email me -- I've
lived in Anguilla, the erstwhile datahaven, and
know a thing or two about such things
situation is only getting better, as far as
offshore colocation goes, as the major governments
get more and more restrictive and bandwidth
becomes more widely distributed -- in a few years,
every country in Africa will have fiber-optic
connectivity via redundant SONET, and that
gives the prospective colocator a lot of
potentially friendly and cash-starved countries
to negotiate with who wouldn't care about
the difference between online advertising and
online pornography.
The net views regulation as damage and routes
around it -- cypherpunks.
You know where to get the source. Do anything you want when Doubleclick comes sniffing around looking for its cookie. Have fun, play tricks on Doubleclick, whatever you want.
Maybe there should be a contest to come up with the best anti-tracking hack for Mozilla.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
- 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...
But they go on to say- 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.
Does anyone know which sites are a part of the "Abacus Alliance" and whether those sites explicitely ask your permission first? (eg. big flashing letters that say WE ARE WATCHING YOU! ?)Someone else posted this a while back, but here's what I did.. very simple.
/etc/hosts (or in windows, find the "hosts" file under your windows directory):
Add this to
127.0.0.1 www.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ad.preferences.com
127.0.0.1 ad.washingtonpost.com
127.0.0.1 adbot.theonion.com
127.0.0.1 adpick.switchboard.com
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.com
127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.net
127.0.0.1 ads.i33.com
127.0.0.1 ads.infospace.com
127.0.0.1 ads.msn.com
127.0.0.1 ads.switchboard.com
127.0.0.1 ads.washingtonpost.com
That removes quite a lot of ads, and all of doubleclick.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This is all well and good, but don't the Pentium IIIs have a "thumbprint" that allows for them to see what we're doing?
You got a network card in your system? That has a "thumbprint" too. The MAC address.
You got any commercial software (e.g., Windows) on your system that you had to enter a software key to use? There's another "thumbprint" for you.
How about a static IP address? Ever time you send a network request, you're identifying yourself.
You think you're safe because you have a dynamic address? Do you at least always call the same ISP at the same phone number? You'll always be getting the same range of IP numbers, then. You and maybe a few dozen or hundred more people. That is almost as good as a unique personal ID, as far as demographics go.
Fact of the matter is, tracking a computer is not that hard to do. If you ever give out any personal information at all (name, email, phone number, ZIP code), that can be combined with any of the above to nail down exactly who you are.
I think Scott McNeally's right on this one. Privacy on the Internet is dead.
The only way to improve things would be for the government to step in and make such unauthorized tracking illegal, with hefty fines for violators. You could even do some good by donating said fines to the EFF.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.