Slashdot Mirror
US Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking
Arashtamere writes "A study on consumer perceptions about online privacy, undertaken by the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that every move they make online can be, and often is, tracked by online marketers and advertising networks. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which online tracking is happening or how the information obtained can be used. More than half of those surveyed — about 55 percent — falsely assumed that a company's privacy polices prohibited it from sharing their addresses and purchases with affiliated companies. Nearly four out of 10 online shoppers falsely believed that a company's privacy policy prohibits it from using information to analyze an individuals' activities online. And a similar number assumed that an online privacy policy meant that a company they're doing business with wouldn't collect data on their online activities and combine it with other information to create a behavioral profile."
Dear online marketer,
Privacy is about more than legal compliance, it's fundamentally about user trust. Be transparent with your users about your privacy practices. If your users don't trust you, you're out of business.
Sigs cause cancer.
>" US Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking"
US Consumers Clueless.
There, fixed it for you.
Really, its not just online tracking ... there are SO many things, from food packaging and labeling to software to car mileage figures to taxes to rights.
The Department of the Obvious?
But I can just change my browser options to "don't save filled forms" and all the stuff I search for on Google isn't saved right?
Nobody could ever get that information.
I am not sure which is more astonishing: That so few people have bothered to read the privacy policies of the web sites they frequent, or that there are people who think the solution is legislation.
"Preceded by itself yields falsehood" preceded by itself yields falsehood.
... the consumers would be correct.
US consumers are clueless about technology in general. If you would ask the average person if they know simple computer concepts such as partitioning and operating systems they are clueless, never mind how the Internet works. Many times, I have been malevolent tech support (face it, we all have had to fill that role) and people couldn't tell me what the operating system they were running was! They were even more clueless about the processor they were running despite a bold sticker telling you on your computer case. So how can consumers be assumed to know a thing about the internet when most can't even tell you what OS they are running.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Does everyone think that Walmart and every other large retailer doesn't track the purchases made with the same credit/debit card? When you use a single identifiable item for so many things, it makes your behavior very easy to predict and to take advantage of. Say hello to Big Visa.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
that a massive wave of realization crosses the minds of the average slashdot reader/ editor: the average guy on the street doesn't care. some slashdot readers are shocked, shocked i tell you, to find out that a lot of people don't treat their private life with the security protocols of a swiss bank. because they simply don't care
and honestly? i side with the average guy on the street with (non)this issue. the average guy on the street looks at the data generated from his random meanderings on the web as useless, unimportant, and not a matter of privacy. and you know what?: he's right. frankly, that some database might know what i visited on eBay, then amazon.com, then netflix is not some horrible raping of my psyche. it really isn't
someone could track the wanderings of people around the supermarket too. is that information deeply personal to you? it is? so then that means you define your deeply personal identity based on what aisle you walk down in in the supermarket? pffft
then they use that information to pitch DVD titles at you, or pasta, or a hallmark card
oh my god. some database knows i bought pepto bismol. now it wants to sell me toilet paper. MY PERSONAL IDENTITY HAS BEEN HORRIBLY RAPED. I HAVE BEEN DEHUMANIZED AND DEMEANED. MY SENSE OF SELF-WORTH IS LOWERED. IT'S ORWELL'S 1984
pfffffffffft
next nonissue please
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dear Slashdot,
I'm in a quandry. I see policemen beating lawyers on the streets in Pakistan.
How should I be feeling?
Thanks,
A concerned citizen.
When donating them money in 2006, I specified a "special" address, which contained "from ACLU" in the "Line 1" of the address. The actual address went to "Line 2" of their form. I do this with all establishments I'm dealing with — just in case.
A month or so later invitations to subscribe to "The Nation" (a disgusting uber-Left rag) started showing up bearing the "from ACLU" address...
Now, I expected the ACLU to be bi-partisan — and concerned with my privacy. Asking me for money the next year is fair game. But sharing my info with other — completely unrelated — organizations? Very disappointing...
Somehow, nothing but parcels from Amazon has shown up bearing the "from Amazon" address.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It isn't a surprise, becuase if people understood how much is tracked and what companies like Google know about them, there would be outrage. No one should have the level of detailed information about a consumer that Google gathers. They know who you email and IM with and about what, what sites you visit, what you buy, what your interests are, where you are and with whom, your stick market interests and investments and more. Even the Soviet era KGB would envy Google data collection and audacity.
Some (GOogle) will say that the privacy policy explains all this. Humbug! First you have to follow a link to find the policy. Second the lawyers and marketeers have obfuscated what is really being done. Further, they can change the policy without notice. When they change you have to know they have changed and then go and read the new policy. How one is supposed to know when no notice is provided is a mystery.
All in all, Google is doing a lot of evil if you believe in personal privacy. They are an invasive collector of personal data and they hide the extent and nature of what they are doing. Google makes Microsoft bashful in their business practices.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Privacy Policy or no privacy policy... if you have been surfing US sites in the past few years, the dept of Home Land Security tracked all (and I mean ALL) your information.
References:
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-aQ_o_yi-s
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWW09xzJfS0
3) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
4) http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2006/06/the_newbies_gui.html?entry_id=1510938
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
> It's funny how the slashbots think they're so superior and more intelligent than the general public.
I've spent enough time explaining to others the difference between sugar water labeled "Orange Drink" and real orange juice. Has nothing to do with intelligence, just healthy cynicism and a knowledge of some of the restrictions on labeling which have appeared in the media.
> Meanwhile you people go apeshit over the latest Apple product, Intel processor or Linux gadget.
Sorry, but I don't own a single Apple product, and never have. My current cpu is an AMD Sempron 2600 that's on its second motherboard (I don't need the "latest and greatest" - let others pay the premium). Linux gadget? I guess the set-top box qualifies ... all my boxes run linux, so okay, I'll give you that one.
> Stop being so smug and arrogant, and you might be able to get laid for once in your life.
Come on, do you expect me to believe the stork brought my kids into the world?
Look, the fact is that a lot of the consumers out there ARE stupid. They buy stuff they don't even really want. Look at all the phoney claims for shampoos - "the science of silkience - scanner photography reveals blah blah blah ..." "Red bull gives you wings!" Yeah, right, whatever ... but it got people to buy it.
Is there a Firefox plugin that randomly scrambles the data of cookies from known marketers?
No. But Firefox will let you block the cookies, or automatically erase them when you leave the program. And you can get the TrackMeNot plugin, which makes random searches on different search engines, so that when they pull your record up to see what you've been searching for, the real searches will be lost in the noise.
Backtrack a second. I'm not a "customer" until I swipe my card at the checkout line. Prior to that, I'm occupying space and am merely potential. Customers are those who purchase. Everyone else is simply unconverted potential. Step back and approach your disdain from that vantage point.
If it looks like a duck, let's call it a moose.
that is not called fascism, that's called meritocracy
fascism is characterized by placing the state and corporations over human rights.
meritocracy involve only allowing credentialed experts in a given field to craft policy for that field, cutting out clueless morons and parties like corporations who are by their very nature amoral and psychopathic, etc.
yes, the concept is flawed, but at the same time it's not really any more flawed than the concept of representative democratic republics.
I honestly think that will be the next form of government once governments like the US topple from the burden of self-interested policies and people voting to give themselves money from the treasury.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
...at least not safe, verifiable encryption which requires identification.
Look at the way SSL is mis-used almost constantly across the web. Even most "techies" don't get it because the concepts are counter-intuitive (even if very simple). SSL certificates and CAs were created to ensure that the domain name you typed-in is the real holder of that domain name. But techies generally think that SSL certs were supposed to validate a site's overall identity or business ethics, and they "know" that SSL has "failed" at this, and so they generally omit it (or slag it) instead of properly evangelizing it.
The product of this misunderstanding: Web users who never bother to check the domain name in the address bar when the lock appears in their browser (if they look for the lock at all). That is how they get phished. There is a reason why the lock appears in the address bar, because it validates that you are connected with the real holder of that address. Whether the people at that address are 'nice', or whether 'ba.com' really stands for your bank is fundamentally up to the user to verify... like getting the phone number of your bank from the back of your credit card or from a bank statement instead of that nice flyer that someone stuffed in your mailbox.
To have computers check credentials for you would entail turning the Internet into a repressive regime where a central authority tells you who what it thinks is "good, shady or bad". And requiring it for all access would probably move it into the 'opressive' category.
Be very careful what you wish for here.
I'm so ahead of those trackers because I wear my fake mustache and glasses when I buy questionable things on the internets. And they say we're clueless!