Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is Online Privacy Getting Better?

Posted by timothy on from the the-cat-bag-is-wide-open dept.

jeffy124 writes: "It appears marketers are finding that there's little value in stockpiling the personal info of web users. Either that or they're responding to the negative feedback of users. In a survey of 400 commercial websites, when compared with figures from a 2000 FTC study, more sites have more prominent and explanatory privacy policies, less carry third-party cookies, less collect personal info, and more use opt-in collection. The study was performed by the Progress & Freedom Foundation, and the full report can be found here." Note that the Progress & Freedom Foundation is an industry-sponsored group which generally favors a non-regulated online marketplace.

7 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics by Joe+U · · Score: 2, Informative

    My company has a hard enough time collecting accurate information from people who buy things from us. I'm amazed when I see someone ordering from our store enter an obviously fake phone number (111-1111) and email (nomail@4u.com) address. Strangely, these are the same people who complain that we don't contact them when something is wrong with their order.

  2. No. It's worse. by Dr+Caleb · · Score: 4, Informative
    Anyone concerned about personal privacy must take drastic steps to avoid all the bots and spiders that are out there. Spammers war-dialing email addresses and sending HTML emails with 1x1 gif's that set cookies, thereby stealing my info...did you know that Netscape mail doesn't pay attention to HTML settings - "Do Not Accept cookies" - for HTML email?

    For example, a couple months ago I started getting emails from M$ - a monthly MS Office newsletter. To my default account that I've had for 10 years without spam! Not to one of the disposable spam aliases..How? I never signed up for it! I don't use/like Office! And I've never never published that address! So I tried to "unsubscribe". The link (cause I'll be dammed if I'm sending them an email to verify my address from!) told me "You do not have a passport account..." Duhhhh!

    So another one arrives today. Here is the link, sent to me from "0_28145_1E184A2F-7C3F-D111-9D3F-0000F84121EB_CA@N ewsletters.Microsoft.com". It said "You can manage all your Microsoft.com communication preferences from this site."

    Aren't these unsubscribe things supposed to work? Yea, Yea, I'm not stupid enough to click on them from spammers, but from Microsoft? With all the scrutiny they are under right now?

    p.s. - after I previewed this story - the link automagically changed from microsoft.com/misc/unsubscribe.htm to microsoft.com/info/unsubscribe.htm!! Interesting!

    --
    "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
  3. P3P by 5p1d3r · · Score: 3, Informative

    With a 30% market share now IE 6.0 is another driving force behind this trend. At the high privacy level IE 6.0 will not accept cookies from any site without a compact P3P privacy policy. Locking out such a potentially large segment of users will make you hurry things up. I know a lot of our ECommerce clients are suddenly moving very quickly in this area because of IE 6.0.

  4. Don't blame the customer. They're being smart! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    I need to post this anonymously because the company I work for manages marketing databases for its clients.

    Many companies share their customer data. They will provide info to the level of "this person bought this class of product for this much money". They even share this data with their competitors! Why? Because many of these companies (especially the ones engaged in direct marketing) make as much money (or more) selling this data of "live ones" as they do in selling their products.

    There are marketing companies that overlay transaction data, demographics data and credit information in large databases. You can't trust anyone. Some of the most respected companies share data in the manner. I was shocked to learn who some of our clients were.

    There's a damned good reason people don't want to give out this information. Even when it is legitimately needed, this information is being abused and customer privacy is being subverted for the almighty buck. Companies are amoral. Your customers know this. You may have good management today. But who knows what tomorrows management team will think?

    Now, anyone who takes the time to slightly alter their contact information can track who is selling their marketing info. Here's how. With B2B being the "next great thing" in the marketing world, add a trackable company name when you buy stuff, such as "ThinkGeek Farms" (just to pick on TG, since their banner is on the page), in the "ship to" address. It'll be ignored by the mail carrier. And companies are paying a premium for marketing information of potential business clients (usually anything with a business name.)

    If your ISP used Sendmail, use Sendmail's handy "+" notation for address aliasing. Tell them your address is "user+thinkgeek@example.com". The mail will get delivered to "user@example.com". (Qmail uses a "-" instead of a "+" for similar, but more powerful, email aliasing.)

  5. No kidding by 0xA · · Score: 3, Informative
    I always got a kick out of places that would try and collect you name adn address for no good reason. I guess some marketing dweeb actually looked at thier DB and decided that this wasn't valuable

    Name: Freddy Fukerfaster
    Address: l1234 Rodeo Drive
    City: Beverly Hills
    State: CA
    Zip: 90210
    Sex: Female
    Age: 142
    Phone: (111)222-3333

    I know I'm not the only person that does this. When I had to sign up on Sun's site to d/l the JDK I actually entered "Scott McNealy" with Sun's Headquaters address and Phone #. The amount of work involved in weeding all the garbage in the DB makes it worthless.

    Unless someone needs my address for billing or shipping they are not going to get it.

  6. Re:No. It's worse. by Dr+Caleb · · Score: 2, Informative
    That's what flames me! I never did subscribe to anything MS! How did they get the only address I've never published?!?

    Especially following that link to try to sign up passport to remove yourself from passport, and it says "Upgrade your browser to something current". I have the most current version of Konquerer ;-).

    --
    "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
  7. Re:No. It's worse. by throwaway18 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You could try forging a bounce message from: Mailer-Daemon@yourdomain.

    You can usually just change your email address in your mail client though there are a few ISP's don't allow outgoing email with a from line that isn't the users assigned mailbox.

    Alternativly just deliver it straight to port 25, as per example;

    RFC2821
    me@vax:~ > host -t MX Newsletters.Microsoft.com
    Newsletters.Microsoft.com mail is handled (pri=10) by Newsletters.Microsoft.com
    me@vax:~ > telnet Newsletters.Microsoft.com 25
    Connected to Newsletters.Microsoft.com.
    220 newsletters.microsoft.com Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 5.0.2195.4905
    HELO mydomain.com
    250 newsletters.microsoft.com Hello [62.64.219.7]
    MAIL FROM: Mailer-Daemon@mydomain.com
    250 2.1.0 Mailer-Daemon@mydomain.com....Sender OK
    RCPT TO: 0_28145_1E184A2F-7C3F-D111-9D3F-0000F84121EB_CA@Ne wsletters.Microsoft.com
    250 2.1.5 0_28145_1E184A2F-7C3F-D111-9D3F-0000F84121EB_CA@Ne wsletters.Microsoft.com
    data
    354 Start mail input; end with .
    Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender

    This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (Exim).

    A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

    username@mydomain.com
    SMTP error from remote mailer after RCPT TO::
    host mydomain [192.100.1.81]: 550 Unknown local user 'username'
    .

    note the empty line to seperate the subject from the body.