Slashdot Mirror
Detailed Privacy Study Finds Loopholes Galore
BrianWCarver writes "The San Francisco Business Times covers a study by student researchers at UC Berkeley's School of Information pointing up the massive holes in privacy policies and protections of which US companies take advantage. The researchers have released a study and launched a Web site, knowprivacy.org, in which they found that Web bugs from Google and its subsidiaries were placed on 92 of the top 100 Web sites and 88 percent of the approximately 394,000 unique domains examined in the study. This larger data set was provided by the maintainer of the Firefox plugin Ghostery, which shows users which Web bugs are on the sites they visit. The study also found that while the privacy policies of many popular Web sites claim that the sites do not share information with third parties, they do allow third parties to place Web bugs on their sites (which collect this information directly, typically without users' knowledge) and share with corporate 'affiliates.' Bank of America, to take one extreme example, has more than 2,300 affiliates — and users cannot learn their identities. The full report and more findings are available from their Web site."
What the fuck did you expect? If you want "privacy", stay home. Oh, wait.
Here's the thing. People don't *want* to be tracked across websites. (Just like they don't *want* to see ads at all... but I digress.) The equivalent is the local store providing a small button-sticker, without your permission, at the door that not only lets their associates direct you to sections you might actually be interested in, but track you via GPS into other stores to see what you buy. And I mean you can take them off later (delete the cookies and all that), but then every other store provides the exact same sticker and some require you to present the sticker at every counter for service. It's something that a paranoid would probably say already happens, but the fact is, that this is turning us *all* paranoid. I don't like being paranoid.
On the other hand, Mr. President Obama has kept quiet on privacy, so we don't even know what his stances are on this issue...
Note: I was 13 when I wrote most of this. Take with several grains of salt.
NoScript can stop most of the scripts running in the background when you visit a web page.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Yeah, it's one thing if they stick a cookie on your computer saying "He logs in as lavacano201014, and he gets the password right", or "I've been here before, don't count me as a new visitor". It's like those events where they stamp your hand to show "You've paid, you just went outside for a smoke". It's another thing if they record personal information that you'd rather keep to yourself. It's like forcing them to tattoo your name and Social Security Number to your forehead and both arms. Do you really wanna wander around with "I'm John Johnson, my SSN is 555-55-5555"? That's my stance. Of course, if you really DO want to wander around like that, none of my business.
A wise man once said, "Where is my other quotation mark?
Even the Whitehouse.gov website has a 1x1 pixel web bug that is in violation of their own privacy policy, not to mention 5 USC 552a.
Those are excellent points.
BTW, from your recent purchasing history on one of our affiliate sites we've noticed that you are interested in laxatives. May we suggest "Stool-Max" (tm), the new and improved laxative to provide 24 hours of continuous relief? Many customers who are fans of Bon Jovi like yourself, have benefited from this breakthrough product.
See, the problem is that my privacy is none of your business. I don't care what you think is acceptable to me. Speak for yourself.
If a surfer visits your site, they have a certain expectation of viewing your content. Now you've decided to share that two-way communication with a hidden third party, who offers you a service (so far so good) in exchange for access to the visitors (that's the problem). Your visitors have not entered into any relationship with the third party, and are not getting any service from them. So why are you letting them get milked?
Think of it this way: Do you carry a hidden tape recorder in your pocket so that you can record all your conversations with your friends and colleagues, just because the weird guy down the street is paying you 10 bucks a week to let him listen in on anything he likes? Would you consider that acceptable behaviour from any of your friends and colleagues?