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Consumer Groups Advocate for 'Do Not Track' Registry
eldavojohn writes "Consumer groups are asking for a 'do not track' registry to be implemented, similar to the successful and popular 'do not call' registry. Tracking companies are asking for examples where tracking has caused harm, and would rather the industry stay self-regulated. 'In December, the FTC approved Google's purchase of advertising rival DoubleClick over the objections of some privacy groups. At the same time, the agency urged advertisers to let computer users bar advertisers from collecting information on them, to provide "reasonable security" for any data and to collect data on health conditions or other sensitive issues only with the consumer's express consent.'"
Do Not Call, Do Not E-mail, and now Do Not Track?
Something I really don't understand here is why ANY reasonable person would not opt-out of any of these systems? (Granted, only the first one is actually coded into law) And how do you enforce them for companies based outside the USA? And for that matter, what's to stop companies from outsourcing their tracking offshore to skirt the laws?
Where is the"your post advocates a..." for this?
something like this would be impossible to enforce, and the data collection is almost always transparent to the user.
but if you really dont want to be tracked, just turn off your cookies! (although there are ways to track without using them)
Oh yeah... where do I sign up for the "Do Not Spam" registry?
What a great concept - for trackers: You individually register and have
to stay identifiable during all your browsing so trackers know it is you.
You allow them to track you so they stop tracking you.
Soundy like a great idea?
Yeah, to me neither.
I'm probably not fully understanding, but how do you track people, but allow someone to "opt out". What I mean is, let's say you don't want DoubleClick to track you. So for them to abide by a "do not track" list, they need to set up some kind of identifier so that, when you visit a site where they would normally track you, they recognize it's you and stop tracking you. But that means you'd have to send them that identifier in every instance where they would track you, and they'd end up having to track you to make sure they don't track you.
I suppose they could just not store the collecting information, though. And no, I didn't RTFA.
Get firefox, Noscript, and adblock plus. Block all the tracking websites! I have "google-analitics.com" (it's frightening how many websites have this embedded, even those without ads) "googlesyndication" "doubleclick" and lots of other on my "untrusted" list. Makes me 20% less paranoid.
Wouldn't it be smarter to just block the ads instead? To prevent such cookies from touching one's computer?
When you outlaw cookies, only outlaws will have cookies..... yum delicious cookies
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
I use adblock and filterset.g. Even when there are ads on the page, I tune them out. When I want to purchase something, I research it. I don't need to have it shoved in my face. Advertising and marketing are a complete waste of human energy at best, evil mind control black magic at worst. I don't want to watch chickens being sacrificed to dark gods, I don't inject raw sewage straight into my brain, and I don't look at advertising.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Judging from how much more spam I get since the CAN-SPAM law supposedly outlawed it, I don't think these online registries do anything but register a high-value contact address. The Do-Not-Call list is different, because the telcos control the calls, and there's a lot more legal precedent (teeth) in counterattacking harassing phonecalls.
It's interesting how despite telcos like AT&T declaring they're going to police the Internet for copyright violation, and otherwise snoop content and traffic as they please, they don't seem to be implementing network spam filters, like with do-not-spam registries. Even though that would be very popular with users, and give the telcos each an excuse to get our contact lists, "to use as whitelists" (or whatever else they want).
There really should be a major push to enforce protecting our privacy. Every email system should operate with a whitelist by default, so only people you add (and maybe people on their whitelist) can get through to you. What would work even better would be micropayments to the recipient for each email they receive, with payments waived (or charged back in bulk or net) for those on the whitelist. Make the micropayments settable by the user (and variable even in the whitelist). Then spammers could pay me to spam me, if they can afford it, and I can make money off being spammed if I set the micropayments low enough. My associates will get to me for free, and new associates can pay to get my attention, then get it refunded if I accept their new contact (and then put them on the whitelist).
Otherwise the noise in our messaging systems really degrade their high value, and inhibit our making using them second nature. Just like what would have happened to the telephone if it were as cheap for telemarketers to annoy us as it is for them to spam us.
--
make install -not war
A "do not track" ... registry? Is this a late April fool's day joke? It sounds like it could backfire. Wouldn't it mean that websites that track at all would be LEGALLY REQUIRED to obtain some piece of identifying information about you to check against the registry? And how could you prove a violation? Wouldn't it still pretty much rely on "self-regulation"?
As an aside, I used to work in a marketing department that had separate "do not call", "do not mail", and "do not email" flags for all their customers. Our group's policy (I can't speak for the whole company) was that if any of those flags were set, we wouldn't put them on any kind of contact list. I think the decision was still based on economics -- they figured the benefit of marketing to a few more people was outweighed by the risk of angering those people: "I'm sorry, sir, I see that you asked not to be mailed or emailed any more offers, but you didn't say we couldn't CALL you!"
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
An exit node can MITM your cookies, posts, and other shit. Tor is not meant to be used 24/7 and it's not meant to be used to submit data(like form information) without encryption(HTTPS in this case) end to end. Exit nodes can see every packet going over the wire, even changing packets to include malware(to own you IE users), replace google ads, or just build a profile on you via the passive monitoring of the communications. If tor comes into widespread use, it's going to come into widespread abuse, and you're going to look like an asshat when grandma uses an exit node with dsniff running.
www.isoHunt.com
How about making tracking, bulk email, internet marketing, telemarketing calls, junk mail, surveys, political and non-profit canvassing, RFID, automatic software updates, census polls and the phone book all "opt-in" under penalty of death?