Slashdot Mirror
Netscape 6 is Spyware?
spoon00 writes: "AOL is collecting information on what Netscape 6 users are searching for on sites like google.com. IP address, the date Netscape was installed and a unique ID number are other bits of information AOL is also collecting."
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
According to IE 6/XP's "Search Companion", this feature "provides task suggestions and automatically sends your search to other search engines."
How does this occur if it doesn't transmit the information to Microsoft as well?
Sure, if I add a search engine into the preferences, I can type "google keyword" all I want to go directly to Google. I suspect, though, that if I rely on the "features" that Microsoft provides, they have access to exactly the same information-- regardless of what the article might claim.
Netscape needs to collect information about the frequency of searches in order to bill the search engines correctly. The very fact that it only occurs in the "Search bar" shows that they are very likely to be telling the truth. It wouldn't be hard to log much much more data than they apparently do.
The commment about the ip address was misleading as well. Any time that information is sent to my computer, I can log the IP address. It doesn't mean that I am going to be doing anything with it.
Ceci n'est pas un post
behavior and information is something a product should clearly and regularly identify it is doing to the customer. Customers are generally willing to cooperate when they perceive there is value to the free product/service they are getting-- but only if they understand exactly what is being recorded, when, and how.
Having to worry about software doing stuff behind your back without informing you is exactly the reason why I go to great lengths to avoid using Windows Media and why I don't use a number of current gnutella clients.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I hope so because that is what any privacy suit would turn on. Does the user expect AOL to intercept searches and log the results?
The Windows XP 'powertool' has a very useful feature that allows you to enter a shortcut for a search engine. So if I type 'g privacy' it sends off a search to Google for 'privacy'.
I just hope that the Slashdot community will have the guts to go after AOL for this in the same way they would Microsoft. As it is I suspect the response will be a bit like the response in Congress to administration stonewalling or the like. Outrage at the actions if it is the other party, appologism if it is their own party, or even outrage that people would even complain.
Netscape has never been pro-privacy. They invented cookies so that advertisers could track readers and now they are tracking them directly themselves.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
With the unique identifier, and having every search query you ever enter pass through a netscape.com redirector, yeah, he's got a right to bitch.
What's anonymous about this? It's one cookie (from a bank, or a broker, or some other site to which he's given real data) and one SQL join away from having his entire search history linked to him.
A redirector is transparently intercepting and logging the user's search queries.
Whether it's www.netscape.com, www.fbi.gov, or www.doubleclick.net doing the intercept and redirect isn't the point. My search queries are transactions between me and Google. I can log 'em. Google can log 'em. They're nobody else's fsckin' business.
While this argument does tend to be extremely one-sided at times on good ol' Slashdot, your implication that it should be a non-issue to people is preposterous.
What you're basically saying is that AOL can do anything it wants with their browser, and anyone who thinks otherwise should either
A. Stuff it
B. Write a browser
While just about anyone could choose (A), I believe you have greatly overestimated/exaggerated the amount of people who are capable of (B). Perhaps there are quite a few on Slashdot; certainly there would be a greater concentration of such people here than in the average American suburb; however, reacting to every argument over the ethics of data gathering in application software with "WRITE IT YUORSLEF!!!!!" might not be the most intelligent way to join the discussion. No one is going to listen to you in a debate if you act as if there is no debate and your point is totally obvious. Not everyone can write a browser; and most people are just going to use what's on their computer when they buy it. Arguing that spying on people who don't know any better and have no way to protect themselves *might* just be a little shady certainly is valid and does not warrant your instant dismissal.
> What follows is my commentary as I tried to get this post under the lameness filter -- resulting in the useless shit post you see above.
:)
Ugh, yeah, the lameness filter truely is the most evil bit of code Mr Taco ever made/approved. Probably.
At the very least it should be turned off (or tuned down significantly) for users with lots of karma; if I get to post at +2 I think it's also reasonable to expect I'm not going to post ASCII penis birds etc.
A few weeks ago I wrote a nice little comment that was mostly a list of points; obviously liking to get proper formatting I threw in the required HTML and was instantly hit by the lameness filter, basically making the HTML formatted mode entirely useless.
And yes, I admit, my train of thought wasn't entirely different from yours
(said HTML mode also removes a lot of useful HTML I like to use; titles for links in order to describe what I'm linking to better, <abbr> and <acronym> which are nice when using a lot of TLA's and ETLA's, <small> which is useful for notes and something I might even have used for this piece of text, etc. Yet I'm allowed to use elements like <div> that have pretty much zero use? Blegh)