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Sites Guilty of Hijacking History

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the break-out-the-foil-hats dept.

Gunkerty Jeb writes "A recent study launched by the UC San Diego Department of Computer Science to determine the scope of privacy-violating information flows at popular websites shows that popular Web 2.0 applications such as mashups, aggregators, and sophisticated ad targeting are teeming with various kinds of privacy-violating flows. Ultimately the researchers determined that such attacks are not being adequately defended against."

2 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Wait... by biryokumaru · · Score: 4, Funny

    I thought that was the whole point of Web 2.0: directly connecting you to people who want to sell you junk you don't need based vaguely on what your interests might be.

    Heck, Netflix recommended Rocky and Bullwinkle based on my interest in Yojimbo, and they were spot on... doesn't get much more Web 2.0 than that.

    --
    When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
  2. Re:Less Than One Percent is Teeming? by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, it being used by adult sites is the worst case scenario right there.

    I mean, one day I could be doing my porn surfi^H^H^H^H^H research on some innocent topic like "anal bdsm gangbang" and next, BAM, a popup comes and says "Mr Moraelin, our mining your history has determined that you've been repeatedly on EA's The Sims 3 site, at least once on the registration site of Hello Kitty Online, in at least one thread named Barbie Horse Adventures Review, and have ordered an iPhone for Christmas. Other users who visited those sites, also visited our gay site, and our guide to coming out of the closet."

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.