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Google and Facebook Top Biggest Web Tracker List
itwbennett writes "A new report from Evidon, whose browser plug in Ghostery tracks Web trackers, makes it plain that 'if you want to worry about somebody tracking you across the Web, worry about Google,' writes blogger Dan Tynan. Google and Facebook, and their various services, occupy all of the top 5 slots on the Evidon Global Tracker Report's list of the most prolific trackers. 'And if you have any tracking anxiety left over, apply it to social networks like Facebook, G+, and Twitter,' adds Tynan."
Check out the Collusion plugin from Mozilla if you want to see for yourself who is tracking you and the relationships between them. Has a nice graphical overview.
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/
I suggest this Firefox extension. Works quite well for me.
Scientia est Potentia
Google derives 96% of its revenue from advertising. All those shiny "free" Google services you love to play with are the result of their ability to monetize information they gather about you. Without tracking, there is no Google. Just keep that in mind.
This is why I stay logged out of my Google account whenever possible and only access Facebook when I absolutely have to. Privacy is dead. Google talks a good talk with "Don't be evil", but actions speak louder than words. And Facebook might be the biggest enemy of privacy on the web right now.
For Firefox I use the Request Policy add-on to block 3rd-party requests. This helps prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF) as well.
Does anyone remember, back in the day, when browsers shipped configured so that all cookies set had to be explicitly authorized to be set? Remember how the first thing everyone did was change their configuration to auto-accept? Remember how browsers eventually changed to just have that setting by default?
A site cannot track you across third-party sites. Not unless you let them. It's just that users have deferred that responsibility to their browser's configuration, and are now complaining that they've been granting authorization to let these sites track them. The result is articles like this, and heavy-handed legislation like the EUs recent cookie-ban. All because users are too lazy and ignorant to take the responsibility on themselves. Hell, with modern browsers and addon/extension models, you don't even need to use the coarse-grained approach that old-school browsers used. Just a plugin that let's you whitelist cookies.
But it sounds like even that's too much effort for the average user. Just complain, and rely on the courts.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
If you were riding a bus, would you expect everyone to cover their ears?
I expect them to "hear" but not deliberately "listen", certainly not to "record", and absolutely not to maintain a linked set of recordings they have made of me at different times I have been on the bus.
This is the social contract most normal people live by.
Next you will be telling me the sky is blue, and water is wet. Thanks for the report Sherlock!
I agree with you.
Just thought I'd share my ultimate brownie recipe with you. Take a saucepan and start melting real butter (125g) and chocolate (185g) and melt on a low heat. Then add 50g flour, 40g Cocoa and 275g sugar. Stir into mixture and then add three eggs. Pour into a greased or papred tin and place in oven for about 25 minutes and they're delicious. They're not to dense or light and they are rich but not overpowering.
You can also mix in chocolate chunks or nuts to make it even nicer.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
I use NoScript myself (and Ghostery), but most people can't deal with how you have to selectively allow javascript domains to get new sites to work under NoScript.
Ghostery accomplishes most of what you want (don't track me, don't steal my info) effortlessly while breaking almost nothing. So you can install it for anyone and not worry too much they'll come complaining to you.
Also, the Ghostery list on any page is freaking scary (Slashdot has only two items). And I'd say 99% of sites are using Google Analytics (including Slashdot).