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FTC Wants Browsers To Block Online Tracking
storagedude writes "The FTC wants a do-not-track mechanism that would allow Web users to opt out of online behavioral tracking, similar to the national do-not-call registry. The agency's preferred method for accomplishing this would be a browser-based tool that would give users the option of blocking data collection across the Web. The only problem is that the agency may not have the authority to require this, thanks to concerted lobbying efforts by the advertising industry. The first step may just be voluntary measures, to be released this fall."
why not Opt-in and disabled by default and any website owner that tries to track without explicit consent (ie. an opt-in) gets done for hacking...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I thought this was called disable cookies, and delete all browsing data upon exit? This isn't even an issue. Do that, and they can track you about as well as what phone prompts you chose when you call support.
There's already an opt-out option:
https://www.torproject.org/
Visit https://bridges.torproject.org/ to grab some bridge IPs and
add this to your torrc file:
UseBridges 1
paste the bridges you obtained from the url above here starting
with the word bridge and following with the IP, one on each line,
like so:
Bridge 1.2.3.4
Bridge 5.6.7.8
Need help with Tor? Speak to the developers (and users) directly:
irc.oftc.net #tor
Or join the Tor mailing list: click the first url above, click
Docs at the top of the page, scroll down for the mailing list
information.
If this is true:
"The FTC wants a do-not-track mechanism that would allow Web users to
opt out of online behavioral tracking, similar to the national do-not-call
registry." they could encourage the use of Tor on their website, possibly
running some tor nodes themselves to aid the Tor network.
It'd be nice to have incognito mode as default.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
There must be a FF extension that can do just that by now. I can't imagine that there are no paranoid nerds that haven't thought of this.
And if there is no FF extension then the required functionality is probably impossible to do browser-side.
Actually I am wondering how they track behaviour, and what a browser can do to prevent it. I can think of a few bits:
- Cookies. The obvious one. Third-party cookies especially. Can be blocked in FF and other browsers for more than a decade already.
- Referrer tags in URLs. Sometimes useful - especially for sites to see where visitors originate - but also for the end user. E.g. after a Google search you go to some web page that then highlights your search terms. Seems trivial to block in your browser as your browser puts the referrer tag in the http request.
- IP address. Naturally public information. Can not be blocked, ever. Merely obfuscated by using tor or so.
- Browser ID. Can easily be faked. But is usually constant for a user, allowing them to be traced anyway using this and the IP address. Also between cooperating web sites. And of course third-party ad providers who in turn can follow IP addresses over their customer's web sites. Those third parties can be (partly) blocked by e.g. AdBlock Plus, only partly as the visited web site can still give your info (IP address, page visited) to the ad company, even when the actual ads are blocked.
That's all that I can think of at the moment, there may be more ways to follow a user. But I don't see much that can be done on the browser-side to stop more tracking.
Why are our elected officials spending any time on this? Is there *any* evidence that the data collected has ever been misused in any way? The online advertising industry is based on selectively targetting users with advertisements, and so far I see no compelling reasons for the government to interfere. Before the government starts regulating an industry, shouldn't there be evidence that the industry is in fact in need of regulating? Disclaimer: I work in an advertising company developing the conversion rate models
And how to you identify theses?
We run just a few sites and they are allow users to change how info is displayed and then track the user and make sure those changes are available across all sites. Would we qualify even if all of that is for internal and a few external users?
For do not call that was easy, you make a commercial cold call you qualify, if this was that easy then someone would of already addeded it or a plug in would be available.
Here's how this will go...
1. Online behavioural tracking and 3rd party cookies outlawed
2. Adverts shown to us are now even less relevant / interesting than they were before.
3. We all click on far fewer adverts as a result.
4. Websites make far less money from their advertising
5. Vast majority of free websites go bankrupt or become subscription only so we stop using them.
6. The concept of the 'free' (as in beer) Internet is lost in history.
It's a LOSE - LOSE situation. When will people realise that well targetted and appropriate adverts are good for everyone?
and assorted free market fundamentalists:
you need government regulations. you want to pay taxes for the legions of government bureaucrats toiling away somewhere interfering with business
because without such regulation business will trample your rights
you heard me correctly: the government protects your rights and corporations trample them. i'm sorry of this idea contrasts with certain brands of low brain wattage propaganda about the government trampling your rights: if the paranoid schizophrenic fantasies of certain right wing zealots ever come to fruition, those abuses will not happen at the hands of washington dc, they will happen at the hands of large corporate entities
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
similar to the Do-Not-Call registry
— which means that you need to identify exactly who you are so that the web site knows not to track you. Most trackers currently do not know who you are, just that you have visited some set of web sites. <irony>That will, of course, not be abused by anyone.</irony>
So their suggested cure is worse than the current disease.
Having a database of users is also heavily bureauocratic & sooner of later that list will get stolen.
A much simpler mechanism is to have a new HTTP header, eg Tracking with values of yes or no. True anonymity, not hard for the browser vendors to implement, light weight.
OK: it will be ignored, but so could the Do-Not-Call registry. Enforcement was always going to be the issue, does the FTC realise that the first letter of www stands for World, ie it has no legal right to control all of it ?
Ghostery blocks all that tracking crap...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/
Waiting for the other shoe to...
i have every right to say what happens on my machine
additionally, i have every right to insist you change your behavior, such as with logs, if suitable logical reason can be found that my rights could potentially be abused by your practices
in other words, there are principles that govern society, and no one is above those principles. and claims to be exempt from those principles, for reasons of trade and commerce, is the road to hell
understand that, or be the enemy of freedom
individual liberty is not trumped by corporate interest, despite all the paid legal whores and assorted apologists to the contrary
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
separate form their constituents interests?
because of infection of the government by corporate money
read the first sentence:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
We. The. People.
to the extent that the interests of the corporations are more important to the politicians than the interests of we the people, is the extent to which that government MUST BE CLEANED UP, not destroyed
your position is this: you see a sick person in front of you (the government). your solution is to condemn the sick person, rather than treat him for the disease
"At least a "greedy" corporation is putting people to work"
additionally, you completely absolve the disease of any wrongdoing for the fact that the patient is sick
it just blows my fucking mind, its fucking incredible: that some people should see the corporate infection of our government and conclude the only solution is to destroy the government!
the only thing standing between us and the infection that is the real source of the abuse of our rights is the government. it needs to be CLEANED UP, not DESTROYED, or then all of the abuses you see GET WORSE. that really is the truth. wake the fuck up
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
then there is a power vacuum
that power vacuum will be filled by corporations, who will employ blackwater private security forces against individual liberty
am i talking science fiction?
no, i'm talking HISTORICAL AMERICAN FACT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency
why is it that so many free market fundamentalists forget about the banking panics in the 1800s (no regulations=bubbles and pops... hello 2008)? why do so many libertarians ignore the abuses of individual liberties by corporations in the gilded age (corporations, not governments, remove your liberties)? why do so many right wing small government zealots completely ignore the hard fought and hard won protections for workers in the 1800s? (40 hour work week, minimum wage, etc... you think these ideas were not developed in an atmosphere of constant abuse of the individual by corporations?)
fact, solid motherfucking fact: corporations will abuse your individual liberties as much as they can in the pursuit of the buck. they ARE NOT BEHOLDEN TO YOU. you NEED the government as your protector with all those regulations and enforcement, or YOU WILL BE ABUSED. to the extent that the government has been coopted by corporate interests and infected from the inside is the extent YOU NEED TO CLEAN UP YOUR GOVERNMENT OF CORPORATE INFECTION...not destroy the only entity which keeps the REAL abusers from defiling your rights!
corporations are the single greatest abusers of individual liberties. government is your only source of protection from those abuses. you NEED a strong central government, or every abuse you detest will be visited upon you MORE
so stop working to DESTROY government, start working to CLEAN UP government
if you argue for smaller government, in the name of individual liberties, the real world effect of your efforts is increased abuses of individual liberties, because you do not understand who the real abusers are
if the patient is sick, don't kill the patient and let the disease spread, treat the patient of the disease and stop the spread of the disease. fight the disease, not the patient. the patient is YOUR government, the disease is corporate dollars
read the first fucking sentence:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
WE. THE. PEOPLE. to the extent that the government is not we the people is the extent to which it has been corrupted by corporate dollars. so get rid of the corporate dollars, not the government!
reclaim YOUR government from corporate infection and make it a more effective tool in protecting your rights and freedoms from the real abusers: corporations who would destroy your rights and freedoms, and have done so in the past, and will happily do so again in the pursuit of more profit, if there is only a weak ineffective government between them and more profit
CLEAN UP GOVERNMENT. DON'T DESTROY THE ONLY THING THAT PROTECTS YOU FROM THE REAL ABUSERS OF YOUR RIGHTS
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The reality that only government holds the special right to employ coercion against you, while the rest of us (including corporations) do not.
Sure they do, it's just a different form of coercion, namely economic coercion.
For instance, let's say you're living in a mining town. You can just about make ends meet by working in the mines, but haven't been able to squirrel away significant savings (your job gives you enough to keep a roof over your head, food on your plate, clothes on your back, and not much else). There aren't any other companies in the area hiring because it's an economic recession. Now, your boss tells you that you need to work an extra 10 hours a week without reporting it in order to keep your job. Your options are: (a) work the extra 10 hours effectively as slave labor, (b) move out of town, (c) unemployment, or (d) report the crime to somebody. Option b is more than you can afford. Option c leaves you homeless and starving. Option d means that your employer will retaliate by firing you (along with anyone else they think was involved) so it's equivalent to option d. So that leaves you with no choice but option a.
That exact scenario is a reality for millions of Americans (as well as workers in other countries) - read up on wage theft. And think about the fact that the only recourse someone in that situation potentially has is government regulation.
I am officially gone from
the state IS me
well, it should be me
to the extent the state is NOT an extension of my willpower is the same as the extent to which it is corrupted by corporate influence
some argue that because the government works against individual rights (since it is corrupted by powerful corporate interests), then the government should be reduced. however, this merely reduces the only (imperfect) buffer we have between our abusers (the corporate infection of our government) and our rights. with less government comes more abuse of our individual liberties. do you deny this? missed out on the gilded ages in your history lessons, huh?
the government, in theory, is beholden to our wishes. so therefore, we must insist that the government's idealistic purpose be adhered to as closely as possible. of course, it will never be perfect, but accepting the corporate infection of our government, or, even worse, arguing for even less protection from corporate abuse (by reducing the government) is clearly not a valid alternative. we must scrub our government of corporate infection, and be ever vigilant of the fungus's return
with a weaker government, a power vacuum will exist that will be filled by corporations, and your rights will certainly be abused. this is not science fiction, this is historical fact. do you fear your government's army and police? then why aren't you afraid of something like blackwater, a private, corporate-controlled army, that is CLEARLY not beholden to you, not even in theory, like your own elected government? didn't you learn from history? behold, blackwater 1.0:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_National_Detective_Agency
why do some people not see the REAL source of the abuse of their individual liberties? the government is NOT THE REAL SOURCE
finally, some see government's regulations and rules as intrusions onto capitalism. some reading my words here will also conclude that i am anti-capitalist
on the contrary: the greatest enemy capitalism has ever known was never socialism or communism, but corporatism: monopolies and oligopolies. again, read your economic history. and PLEASE do not confuse the fight against corporatism as a fight against capitalism. if anything, the fight to reduce corporate influence and power in our lives is a fight FOR a purer more fair and level field in capitalism. the small smart start up company with a good idea, in pure capitalism, will reap much profit. in reality, the greatest threat to this small smart start up is not taxes, its not regulations: its entrenched big players, who abuse the government to change the rules to suit them, and otherwise take advantage of natural imperfections in the marketplace to keep smaller rivals at bay, to maintain the status quo, not maintain true capitalism
capitalism != corporatism
corporatism > communism + socialism, as a threat to capitalism
do NOT forget that, and do not confuse attacks on corporatism as attacks on capitalism, or you have failed to understand your own principles and the reality you live in
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
since the dawn of time, the rights of the INDIVIDUAL are pitted against the rights of the GROUP
pretty much the entire history of mankind is a narrative about this essential struggle
so some ancient greeks, a few others, and finally some american colonists said "hey, this abuse by the group sucks, but we still have to coordinate our activities if we are to survive as a strong entity able to fend off such abuse by large injust groups. so how do we do that? maybe this democracy thing, hmmm..."
and so began a silly experiment called democracy, which has always been messy, always imperfect, but still better than lying down and accepting horrible abuse at the hands of a group
so what i am saying is: yes, the government abused your rights, is abusing your rights, and will always abuse your rights. i understand and agree with that assessment completely, and offer no lala land tales about the wonderful joys of big government: i am not an idiot. but at least, in a democracy, in theory IT IS ACCOUNTABLE TO YOU and you have CIVIL AND LEGAL AVENUES FOR RECOURSE. you don't have to pick up a gun or throw a molotov cocktail to address your grievances. you can stand on a soap box or start a blog or a lawsuit instead. and if enough people agree with you, you begin to see satisfactory justice for your abuse, without violence
what about corporations? who or what are they accountable to? answer: profit, greed, make more bucks AT ANY COST. a corporation will clearly trample your rights in order to get more profit. a government will also trample your rights for various random goals. but only one of those entities allows you to say "this is not fair!" and if enough of your fellow citizens agree with you, the abuse is addressed, reversed, and not allowed
see my point?
because democracy is imperfect is no reason to accept something clearly worse. because the government nibbles your toes is no reason to accept or see as superior a world in which corporations gnaw your fingers off
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it