Shopping Online While Protecting Your Privacy?

Bart asks: "How can you shop online and protect your privacy? I have been trying without success for a few weeks to shop at the online site of the bigest supermarket chain here in England. My problem is that either I am not using Internet Explorer or Netscape or that I have set up Junkbuster to return a spurious user-agent. With this configuration I can visit my bank, transfer money and make payments, I can visit my two stockbrokers and make deals of up to 100,000 USD but I can't go to Tesco and buy cat food." It seems odd that certain places require a bit too much information from you before they will even do business. What information do you think is fair for Web sites to posess on an individual, and how far do current e-Commerce sites cross that line?

"Protracted e-correspondence with Tesco (apart from regular instructions on setting up Internet Explorer) revolves around bypassing the proxy and setting up a direct connection. As shopping online for mundane things like groceries gets more common and less the province of technically aware people, we can expect more and more intrusions like this into our privacy. Can anything be done about it?"

Comments

Re:there is nothing wrong with user-agents

[Masem]

Does the UK have any law similar to the American Disabilities Act? Most readers for sight-impared people don't broadcast themselves as NN or IE, and therefore would be unable to use this site. Which is practically the same as not providing ramps to get into a brick and mortar store.

And remember, there *are* pending lawsuits by disabled people against AOL and others for just this reason.

If the UK has similar laws, you may want to kindly write Tesco to remind them that said disabled users won't be able to access their site.

I don't see the point

[SimonK]

Given that you're going to give Tesco your credit card number anyway, from which they can find out just about anything about you, and if you have a loyalty card they can also correlate this information with your purchases, I really don't see what you gain by using junkbuster etc. If someone already knows what groceries you buy, where you live, your income band and your credit rating, and probably a great deal about your lifestyle, letting them know what web browser your use and what web site you came from seems pretty irrelevant.

Frankly I find this obsession with privacy somewhat bizarre and worrying. For some reason people see it as reasonable to expect to be able to conceal all the details of their online activities to a much greater extent than is possible in real life. Why ?

Re:Ask?

[arivanov]

Is it a horrible conspiricy on their part, or is it just bad HTML?

When stupidity is a sufficient explanation there is no need to resort to any other:

• The secure mode looks like operating with the same cursed Micro... like Barkleys not just standard SSL. So it is least likely to work properly with Netscape in first place.
• Cookies look like standard ASP session library and standard shopping basket implementation.
• As you are going to be leaving there you credit card information anyway there is not much you will keep private anyway. They know your name, address, date of birth and can actually even request a credit reference for you and learn about your income band from there. So you may let them cookie your arse off anyway. Just use an editor to check them after that.
• It is quite likely by the look and feel with Junkbuster on and Off that it relies on HTTP referrer in quite a few places. It is genuinely stupid, but some people see it as a "security measure". Quite popular lately. I wish they were watching more on unique session IDs and where and how they store data instead. See the recent Barkley and other cases

Conclusion: I guess you will have to use insecure browsing and junkbuster off you want to shop with netscape on this site. Or use vmware and shop with a Windoze having vmware in the mode when it does not keep the disk updated. After powering off all they have managed to stuff your machine with will go on holiday. And they will have wrong preference info on you anyway Standard disclaimer:

• I do not shop at tesco online
• I had a look at it for 2 mins at most

Re:Don't use 'em

[rc-flyer]

I've been asked my SS# many times. Also, Radio Shack is infamous for asking and sometimes insisting on my phone number, even though I pay in cash!
I finally broke my local store of that habit. I had fun doing it, I was looking for a new stereo, and decided to see what they had. I was ready to plunk down about $600, the sales guy was writing up a ticket and asked me my phone number. When I asked why he said it was store policy. I asked for the manager, when he showed up I waved my cash under his face, and told him that they just lost a big sale because they insisted on my phone number; then I walked out. Next time I went in there was a sign posted prominately that the phone numbers were optional. But the look on their faces when I walked out was priceless!

Tell'm whatever you want

[kensail]

I have gotten into that habit of "making mistakes" with these numbers. Just make them up!
You ask me for my SSN? Sure its 554089652 the clerk writes it down everyone is happy. My phone number 342-980567 Yeah it's a little weird I have a cell phone... They won't tell me what they want with it so I don't feel the need to be truthfull with them either. Nobody makes you PROVE these random numbers do they? They depend on stupidity and truthfulness. Give them neither.

The best piece of misinformation holds a kernel of truth. If you want to be totaly duplicidous just interchange some of the real numbers. Switch a couple of digits now and agian.

-Kensail

this won't protect you from such abuses...

[mirko]

...but just let you know about indelicate persons :
I personally have hundreds of aliases that I give to new contacts.
I preferably use really stupid ones whenever I am not sure about my contact ; e.g. I sent one day mirko@garagiste.com to an inoffensive-looking web site while requesting information about data security.
You can't imagine how many sex spams I received under this alias.
Also, whenever requesting for documents to be sent through normal post, I usually give a fake first name (e.g. Baudoin, Ibrahim, Bill, etc.) which then allows me to track the spammers.
At the end, I just set some filters on the spammed accounts so that I can get rid of spams.
Now, if they want your personal data, you can consider they just want to know how they can reach you with public mean (email, mailbox, etc) and then give you some information that'd be just relevant enough but objectively not corresponding to you.

(let's say the website was compusa.com)
... My phone number (why the hell do you need it ?) is blah (real one). my Family name is blahh (real one too) and my first name is Hiroyoshi.
(click on submit)
(one week later, the phone rang)
-Allo ? Mr Hiroyoshi ? As a faithful client, we guess you could be interested in our offer : twenty four boxes of (put any soap brand here) for half price if you buy us ten rolls of toilet paper.
-So, compusa also sell toilet paper and soap ?

Anyway, my favourite one was with an old hotmail account that is now closed : a21z.
Before I ever use it publicly (on deja.com), this account got spammed.
The complete recipients list was readable.
To my surprise, all the email addresses (around 2 or 3 hundreds) were containing the string Aziz.
Ah ah ah ah ah ! I can't imagine they have some spams only aimed at guys called Aziz !!!

Conclusion:

• Whatever information you give, they will guess the rest.
• Maybe they'll just ask you elements that they already know in order to compare them.
• don't forget to mail abuse@ and postmaster@ after each spam. I am currently writing a mailer that will do this automatically as well as blacklisting the spammers (not to download their mail from a pop server).

--

[OT] Tomorrow's Slashdot healines

[vertical-limit]

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I tried to shop in real time with privacy

[Hairy_Potter]

I went into a store wearing a ski-mask (which is unusual in Rochester in August, ski-mask weather doesn't come until Ocotber, here).

I didn't want people to see what kind of groceries I am buying, for then they could make the inference that I have a cat, a dog, a child and a wife, and try to direct mail market to me using that information, and violate my privacy.

Wouldn't you know it, they called the cops, suspecting a robbery.

Do any Slashdot readers know of a grocery chain where I can shop in the northeast US that will let me shop with a mask on, to protect my privacy?

Thanks

Re:User Agent

[DrXym]

Some websites use the user agent to deliver "enhanced" (i.e. browser proprietary) content. For example, if a site knows you use IE it might draw the shopping basket as a fixed element instead of a frame etc. It sounds like Tesco is doing this too, though at the very least it should drop down to HTML 3.2 if it can't figure out what you're using.

The most annoying thing a website can do is refuse to work in such circumstances. The same goes for those shitty websites that refuse to work without a referrer URL.