Amazon Search Bar Will Track Your Browsing

Limit writes "There has been a lot of discussion regarding GMail and Google's privacy policies. However, with the recent debut of Amazon's A9.com, I havn't seen any mention to the information they intend to collect. I saw this article today, "The history server stores -- on our servers -- your history of interaction with us for the purpose of bringing that back to you in a very convenient way ... If you install the toolbar, then all your Web browsing, as well as all your searching, is stored as well." Where is all the media hype about this privacy issue?"

Comments

Well...

[daishin]

If they see me browsing freshmeat.net, and sourceforge all the time will they send me free stuff?

I don't trust any so-called "browser helpers".

[blcamp]

Seems to me that installing any third party browser add-on is only asking for trouble.

Why add another executable that will sap some your system resources while at the same time be able to monitor your surfing habits?

Doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense to me...

Re:I don't trust any so-called "browser helpers".

[rainman_bc]

I dunno.... Some of the Firefox add-ons are a web developer's dream. Stuff like live http headers and the developer toolbar make life heaven... There are good browser add-ons, you just need to look at GOOD browsers :)

Re:I don't trust any so-called "browser helpers".

[next1]

exactly: when you can just run firefox and have a google toolbar built-in but without any of the privacy concerns mentioned in this article, + block pop-ups + install any of many other plugins available.

Um, just use the 'generic' one...

[Space cowboy]

From their privacy policy on all the signup pages:

Automatic Information: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many Web sites, we use cookies, and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses A9.com. Click here to see examples of the information we receive. If you would prefer not to be recognized on our site, we recommend that you use our alternate service located at generic.A9.com. On generic.A9.com, we will not recognize your A9.com or Amazon.com cookie. Information we gather on generic.A9.com will not be used in our data analysis (other than to detect abuse) and will not be used to personalize the services we offer you.

Anyone who signs up for a "free" service without reading the small print deserves what they get, just like with any other 'unbelievably-good' offer...

Simon.

You have the right to not install

[PtM2300]

Personally, if an application can use my search records to provide me with more information I'm actually interested in, I'd welcome the oppurtunity. If anyone is concerned with privacy, they don't need to install it! I'm still waiting for the time to come when I don't have to watch tampon commercials on my television!

Sound off..

[Mean_Nishka]

You know, I'm really getting irritated over the outrage I'm seeing against VOLUNTARY web services. Personally I don't have a problem with using Gmail when it's available, nor do I care of Amazon tracks my searches if it makes for a better and more efficient web experience.

People are going crazy over this stuff, but they forget the fact that these services are not required. If you're paranoid and concerned that Google and Amazon are going to sell you down the river, don't use it! It's that simple.

Where's the outrage against Microsoft for allowing all of this seething spyware to install itself so easily? Likewise, where's the bad press about companies that are hawking this garbage and actively selling your information without permission? I can't tell you how many machines I've had to clean out this sludge from. Thank G-d for Mozilla!

Re:Sound off..

[orthogonal]

You know, I'm really getting irritated over the outrage I'm seeing against VOLUNTARY web services. Personally I don't have a problem with using Gmail when it's available, nor do I care of Amazon tracks my searches if it makes for a better and more efficient web experience.

Well, of course you're right. No one is being forced to use GMail or A9. And presumably the astute (and paranoid) will read the privacy notices and avoid selling their privacy for a mess of pottage -- I mean, services.

One problem with the Libertarian Capitalistic outlook -- much as I'm sympathetic to Libertarianism, and see great values in Capitalism -- is that it requires all actors to be rational, and to have roughly the same knowledge of the "playing field". (this is why, for instance, insider trading is banned -- because it undermines the level playing field that must exist for the free market to work.)

But we have corporations that employee literally hundreds of psychologists and marketing and advertising professionals who make it their lives' work to figure out how to get disarm or misdirect our ability to be rational economic actors. And these corporations also employee lawyers and economists and lobbyists, so that the corporation, as an entity, has much more knowledge than the individual can ever hoe to have.

A small case in point: their are widespread allegations that many companies, cellular phone companies especially, intentionally overcharge customers. They idea is that many customers won't notice or won't be willing to spend hours on hold with Customer Disservice to correct the bill. And even those customers willing to pay the additional (time) cost to get their bills corrected will be giving the company interest on the mis-billed money. The interest for one little customer is miniscule, but for the company teat small bit of interest over millions of customer accounts means a significant additional revenue.

So we have people who -- according to the traditional laissez faire capitalist treatment -- are supposed to be rational economic actors, and yet we know damned well that they won't be because the companies planned ahead of time to make sure they couldn't be.

What's the damage? Well, look at AOL. Nobody was forced to use AOL, and savvy, computer literate people knew better than to pay inflated rates for substandard dial-up with a plethora of additional, in-your-face ads. So AOL got the noobs and the boobs. No skin off our elite asses, right?

Wrong! AOL's massive and massively uninformed user base hit Usenet like a tidal wave in '96, and Usenet has not to this day regained its former wit, conviviality, or usefulness. Entire 'net communities were wiped out, never to be seen again.

Or consider Gator and File-Sharing products filled with spyware. Those of us on Slashdot are savvy enough to get a GPL'd version of whatever we want on sourceforge, or to at least run AdAware after installing dome piece of crap that brings along 97 pieces of spyware and adware with it. So again, our elite asses aren't getting skinned, are they?

Wrong again! That spyware not only clogs the noobs' computers, it allows them to be compromised and turned into vectors of Trojans and engines of spamming. And we "elite" get the spam and get DDOSed and get bombarded with Trojans knocking on our ports as much as any noob.

It's sort of like keeping the environment clean: it's my vested interest to keep this environment clean, because I have to live in this environment. If the whole net, or a significant portion, is buying into something dubious, I know that sooner or later I'll feel the consequences too.

Maybe Gmail is not a threat to privacy; but if it is, I want to know that before I'm one of a handful of cranky holdouts, and all the email I get comes from, and all the email I send goes to, GMail. Because at that point, I am part of the system, whether I like it or not.

Want privacy?

[GoofyBoy]

Don't use it.

Want to use it?

The full quote:
"The history server stores -- on our servers -- your history of interaction with us for the purpose of bringing that back to you in a very convenient way. Whenever you come to the site, we can show you what you searched for in the past in a very easy-to-organize fashion. If you want to hide some of that, you can opt out at any time. If you install the toolbar, then all your Web browsing, as well as all your searching, is stored as well. And we are working on many different ways to improve that."

You can opt-out.

Still demand your Constiutional Right to this private service?

From: http://www.a9.com/-/company/privacypolicy.jsp
"Wh at Choices and Access Do I Have?
If you would prefer not to be recognized on our site, we recommend that you use our alternate service located at generic.A9.com. On generic.A9.com, we will not recognize your A9.com or Amazon.com cookie. Information we gather on generic.A9.com will not be used in our data analysis (other than to detect abuse) and will not be used to personalize the services we offer you."

Still not enough for you?

May I suggest: http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

Re:Google toolbar does the same

[adamontherun]

I installed a9 when it debuted last week. For me, the privacy-utility trade off has fallen on the useful side. A9 doesnt do anything that you couldnt do if you
a. searched google
b. searched Amazon's Inside the Book
c. kept a running blog to document your thoughts on all the pages you visit
used your history bar in your browser

Bringing all this functionality together in one app adds value to me.
This has worked for me in the trial phase... will have to rethink the long-term privacy implications in a couple weeks.

oh, come on

[Knights who say 'INT]

It's not like if it was cleverly cloaked. They're pretty open about it - you're trading in some privacy for some convenience. I mean, not everyone browses porn of embarassing kinds they wouldn't like other people to see.

If it's useful enough, I could see myself thinking of installing it at the Win32 box I use at work. I mostly just look at slashdot and my webmail (hosted at my home Linux computer) anyway.

I mean, gee, there's always a trade-off between convenience and privacy. Not everyone's encrypting all their outbound email with a note on how to install PGP.

Internet Explorer Tracks you too!

[PetoskeyGuy]

I was so upset about reading that Amazon was tracking my searches that I checked all my other programs for similar privacy violations. What I found may shock and appall some of you.

It must have been that last service pack I downloaded or that damn Auto Update, but you'll never believe it. INTERNET EXPLORER TRACKS YOUR BROWSING! Not only does it track every link you click on it also saves every image or web page you view. I found a hidden cache of html, images, flash files, audio files... everything I've looked at for weeks was there!

There was even a whole folder full of thousands of cookies! Websites sometimes use them I'm told, but that damn microsoft has been stealing them from websites I browse and backing them up in a secret folder on my hard drive. I deleted them and now all my web site preferences are gone and some of the sites I use don't log me in automatically anymore. Microsoft must have detected that I deleted them and they are demonstrating their power over me.

Well that's it I've had it I'm not going to take it any more! I'm switching to Mozilla today. Take that Microsoft.

P.S. Wal-Mart is switching everything to RFID tags, but that's where I get my tinfoil from. Does anyone have a good source of 1990s era tin foil? I've been using my baked potato tin foil to kill the RFID tags, but it doesn't always stick right and the wife refuses to wear her tinfoil hat at all now. I'm not sure if she can be trusted any longer...

It works both ways

[Graftweed]

As the old adage goes, everyone can find out what you're doing online, they just don't have any meaningful (or easy) way of linking that information to your identity.

What's happening here is that now Amazon can do just that. They already have all the details they'll ever need about you, such as name, address and credit card number(s), they just added a way to correlate all your book searches to that identity, and now apparently all your browsing history too. Is this really that valuable to the common person? Do WE need to know every book we've ever browsed or every page we've ever visited? Marketing types will no doubt love this, but seriously, how will all this information ever work for you more than to whoever is hosting it?