Twitter Will Track Your Browsing To Sell Ads

jfruh writes "Remember how social networks were going to transform the advertising industry because they'd tailor ads not to context or to your web browsing history, but to the innate preferences you express through interactions and relationships with friends? Well, that didn't work with Facebook, and it turns out it's not working with Twitter either. The microblogging site has announced that it's getting into the ad retargeting game: you'll soon start seeing promoted tweets that are chosen based on websites you've visited in the past. The innovation, if you can call it that, is that the retargeting will work across devices, so you can be looking at a website on your phone and see promoted tweets on your laptop's browser, or vice versa."

Comments

How does one prevent this ?

[middlemen]

I have a genuine question. Assuming one uses Twitter from the phone, how does one prevent the Twitter app on the phone to scan the browsing history ? If they cannot scan my browsing history they cannot give me ads.

On another note, if there are companies who can scan tweets (such as stocktwits) to give you sentiment analysis, why cant Twitter do the same ? Have they realized that they just have a bunch of web developers who know only Javascript and can't do text processing using it ?

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Jason Levine]

On another note, if there are companies who can scan tweets (such as stocktwits) to give you sentiment analysis, why cant Twitter do the same ? Have they realized that they just have a bunch of web developers who know only Javascript and can't do text processing using it ?

Even more so because Twitter has direct access to their databases while all other developers must work through the Twitter API. Don't get me wrong: It's nice, but if you need to analyze massive amounts of data, it can be slow to transfer it from Twitter to your application.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[brunes69]

This isn't even a permission an App can request on Android. Not sure about iOS.

This is not how Twitter is going to do this anyway. They are doing it via the little "Twitter" links everywhere on the web. These will track your page views, and then the instant you sign into your twitter account on that browser, they will know every page you visited. It is no different than how Google knows the pages you visited.

You can block it in two ways... either a) never sign into twitter in your browser unless in Incognito mode, or b) Block third-party cookies and trackers using Ad Block. I do the latter.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[gstoddart]

I don't use Twitter, so I'm not sure ... but I've got AdBlockPlus on my phone.

But this is just one of the many reasons why I'm not interested in Twitter, and have most of my browsers well equipped with cookie blockers, script blockers, and a raft of stuff to keep things like this away from me.

I have no desire to help advertisers and the like collect more information. And I'm certainly not going to provide it if I can avoid it.

Maybe they can sell me targeted ads for tinfoil or something. ;-)

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

They know every website you've visited that has a "Tweet" or "Follow Me" button on it, so could easily target ads based on that - doesn't involved reading your browser history at all.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Thanshin]

I have a genuine question. Assuming one uses Twitter from the phone, how does one prevent the Twitter app on the phone to scan the browsing history ? If they cannot scan my browsing history they cannot give me ads.

1 - Set up a vnc connection from your phone to your home computer.
2 - At home, run Twitter on a virtual machine with no other app installed. (The virtual machine has its own wifi through an usb dongle never used for anything else)
3 - Crack a neighbor wifi and connect to the internet through it.
4 - Connect the virtual machine to one paid and one free vpn services. (passing through your neighbor's AP).
5 - Once you've got that set up, connect to your contact in a country with no extradition treaty with your own country and send him a plain message with what you want to tweet. Your contact shall then write the message in twitter and send you any related message or reply, by ordinary postal service to a numbered nameless po-box, far away from your home. (a different one every two weeks).

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I poke my eye.
Doctor: Don't poke your eye.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Thanshin]

In case someone is humor impaired, I feel the need to say that the previous post was a joke.

Obviously you shouldn't crack your neighbor's wifi.

You need to drive around the city cracking a different wifi for each tweet.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Walterk]

Use a third party application (while you can). They don't have the promoted tweets and the like. For Android I recommend TweetLanes

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[surmak]

Request Policy

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Dodgy G33za]

And this is true even if you don't have a twitter account or use Twitter. It is just in that case they don't know anything about you.

This is why I redirect facebook in my hostsini. looks like I should do the same with the other icon providers. Although I block ads anyway.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Dodgy G33za]

I thought you wrote "wife".... put a completely different complexion on the post.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[BitZtream]

I have a genuine question. Assuming one uses Twitter from the phone, how does one prevent the Twitter app on the phone to scan the browsing history

Use an iPhone. Stop being the product.

You're worried about apps reading your browsing history because you are the product, not the customer. Stop buying products who's main selling point is the free OS someone else gave them until you realize why they gave them the free OS in the first place.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[gstoddart]

And this is true even if you don't have a twitter account or use Twitter. It is just in that case they don't know anything about you.

And this is why ad blockers, cookie blockers, and script blockers are your friends.

Deny them the data is the best approach.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[unitron]

I thought you wrote "wife".... put a completely different complexion on the post.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wi-fi.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Thanshin]

Well, at least you cracked the neighbor's wife.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[safetyinnumbers]

Google Chrome allows easy creation and switching of user profiles.

I've wondered whether I should have a separate profile for each social site as a way to isolate them.

I turn off 3rd party cookies, but I heard that there was an exclusion for sites that you had logged into and received cookies from.

Meaning, 3rd-party ad site could not send you cookies, but Facebook still could if you'd signed in to it earlier.

More drastic isolation of browser instances is another option (I've wondered about sandboxie but not tried it).

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use Twitter? Life will still go on.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[fluffythedestroyer]

For users who bristle at the thought of another Internet company tracking them, Twitter offered a few options. Users can uncheck the box next to "promoted content" in their privacy settings and Twitter will not match their account to information shared by its partners for tailoring ads, Twitter said...

This should be THE solution if people don't want to be track but...

The company did not say, however, whether it would still hold on to users' data for other purposes.

that I'm not surprised so.. just browse in incognito if your that afraid or if its general browsing, just use a free web proxy. They don't offer ultra speed but to remain annonymous, they are very good

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[fulldecent]

>> Remember how social networks were going to transform the advertising industry because they'd tailor ads not to context or to your web browsing history, but to the innate preferences you express through interactions and relationships with friends

The major of online advertising spend is based on URLs and Keywords. And a "content network" campaign (URL-based) is already hard enough to set up.

Now I have to design my marketing strategy for online medical certifications based on (is a republican) (upper income bracket) ("likes" hospitals) (shops at Apple store)... forget about it.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Wootery]

I wonder if browser profiles would be enough.

One also has to worry about things like Evercookie. I'd like to think browser-profiles are built to defeat EverCookie, but whether they actually do I don't know.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mlts]

I use sandboxie, and find it well worth using. With additional "supercookies" and methods to save state, having all Web browser data saved on a different volume, and is completely purged when done, no matter how many hidden files are written, is a good method of protecting privacy. Doesn't take much doing either. One can force a browser to run in a sandbox, or just right-click on it, select "run in sandbox", pick the sandbox you want it in, and go.

This is also coupled with "click to play" for Flash or other stuff, and using AdBlock for an extension, so the browser doesn't have to deal with most of the nasty stuff.

I also run a different browser for banking that I do general browsing. The more separation, the better.

People firewall their computers, might as well have a layer of security (sandbox or VM) against untrusted code that hits their machines directly.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[TheP4st]

The type of tracking in question have nothing to do with what OS you use as it is done via those little social media links that are present all over on nearly every damn website of a reasonably large size.

Use an iPhone. Stop being the product.

Use CyanogenMod. Stop being the product or a tool.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't even a permission an App can request on Android. Not sure about iOS.

There is, actually. READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS

  To prevent apps from using this (and other permissions) download something like App Ops or root your device and use XPrivacy.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mrchaotica]

You can block it in two ways... either a) never sign into twitter in your browser unless in Incognito mode, or b) Block third-party cookies and trackers using Ad Block. I do the latter.

The first method would still allow Twitter to build a "shadow profile." It may not be explicitly linked to your Twitter ID, but it's still just as identifiable. Therefore, only your second suggestion is an actual solution, in my opinion.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mrchaotica]

Although it may be good enough for stopping Twitter, the trouble with Sandboxie is that it still relies on Windows, which cannot be trusted for other reasons. IMO, if you're going to the trouble of sandboxing everything anyway, you might as well just skip straight to Qubes OS.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[SuricouRaven]

I use a squid proxy configured with a list of ad-and-tracking sites to block. There's also privoxy, which is made for that. If you've got a lot of computers and other devices or a whole family to protect, central filtering on the home server-router is easier than maintaining multiple adblock installs plus filters on android tablets, phones and iStuff.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[brunes69]

I don't see how. Nothing is retained in Incognito mode. Every time you launch it you have a totally new profile.

The only way they could build said "shadow profile" is based on IP. But they can't tie the IP to a given twitter user name if you never sign into twitter on that device.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mrchaotica]

I don't see how. Nothing is retained in Incognito mode. Every time you launch it you have a totally new profile.

You make the implicit assumption that you're relaunching often, which may not always be the case (especially if you're using it all the time, instead of only occasionally).

The only way they could build said "shadow profile" is based on IP. But they can't tie the IP to a given twitter user name if you never sign into twitter on that device.

1. Point 1: The Twitter user name is probably the least important piece of information they're trying to connect.
2. Point 2: You only have to slip up once in order for your shadow profile and your named profile to get connected, permanently. It's way too risky.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mlts]

There is always the next step up -- a VM. It sounds like a lot of pointless steps, but with VMWare's Unity, the Web browser appears as another application on the taskbar, except marked with a color around it.

I do agree sandboxing might take a little bit of work, but it isn't that much for the protection gained. Similar with a VM. Even when not in VMWare's Unity mode, it is just a window to click on.

Long term, this complete sandboxing functionality should be in the OS. BSD's jail(), SELinux, AppArmor, and Window's low privilege mode all are steps in the right direction, but what is needed is separation of not just the browser from the OS, but separating each window/tab from each other, so a compromised window can't affect banking data on another tab, and in no way, the compromised window can get a user context [1] or higher. This has to be a cooperation between the Web browser application and the OS, as if the Web browser has a bug in it allowing malware to gain access, this is limited as much as possible. This way, there are at least two layers before a rogue plugin has control of the machine.

[1]: If a user context is gained, that is almost as good as admin access. From there, ransomware can run to encrypt files, Trojans can be dropped, keyloggers started, BitCoin miners launched, and DDoS attacks started. None need root/admin access.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[TheGratefulNet]

and thou shalt have no other ISP before me.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mrchaotica]

There is always the next step up -- a VM.... Long term, this complete sandboxing functionality should be in the OS.

Did you read my post? Running everything in (separate) VMs is exactly the point of Qubes OS, with the advantage (compared to Windows or VMWare) of being Free Software.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[roscocoltran]

The IP is not the only way to identify a browser.

try this link and cry:
how unique is your browser

I talk smart, but my nerd resolution of 2400x1920 gives 15 bits of identifying identification, and firefiox ESR give 10.

"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 3,665,195 tested so far."

in fact disabling cookies makes your browser more unique. Add the timezone, the fonts, the plugins and your browser quickly becomes more and more unique.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mlts]

Yes, Qubes is useful. I was pointing out how to accomplish a fraction of the security of said OS with existing tools.

In a perfect world (i.e. no installed base), that would be how all desktop operating systems would be. The ideal would be a type 1 hypervisor, a backend deduplicated filesystem, copy on write capabilities, and so on. Someone fires off their office suite in one VM, save a file to a shared directory only visible to that VM and the mail client VM, and so on. Essentially not just virtualizing the memory space like conventional operating systems do, but completely duplicating libraries and all userspace.

In addition, the application VMs can be encrypted, only decrypted when used, and once done, the keys purged. This way, if a laptop is stolen while it is being used, not everything is compromised.

Only downside of this is that it does take a learning curve. I was trying to point out a solution that is better than nothing -- stick the Web browser in its own box, well away from anything sensitive.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[mrchaotica]

Yes, Qubes is useful. I was pointing out how to accomplish a fraction of the security of said OS with existing tools.

Oh, okay. I was under the impression that Qubes was "existing" (I've seen people on Slashdot claim to use it, but haven't tried it myself). It does have a version labeled "release" on its download page, so I assume it's at least somewhat usable...

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[brunes69]

I think you are missing the point. If they can't tie this profile to my Twitter handle then frankly I could care less if they build said profile.

Anonymous profiles do not cause a privacy issue, at least not for me. It's irrelevant to me.

Furthermore - this profile is just based on little more than the plugins I have installed and my resolution. I would be willing to wager quite a large sum that the combination of those things is far from unique to myself.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Kazoo the Clown]

It doesn't matter, they can connect the separate sandbox sessions through the login credentials you use at various sites, credentials that are universally tied to an email address. Unless you use a different email address with every separately sandboxed app, you're wasting your time.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Kazoo the Clown]

Overloading them with useless data is the best approach.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[maxwell demon]

Flash can store its cookies cross-profile, and even cross-browser.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Wootery]

I should have mentioned it explicitly, but that was part of my point: do browser not take this into account?

Do they scramble/lie about supported fonts? If they're serious about this stuff, they should.

Clearing cookies is nowhere near enough to hide the identity of your browser/computer.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[maxwell demon]

My screen resolution reads as "no javascript" :-)

Almost all identifying information comes from the User Agent and HTTP_ACCEPT headers. Each "no javascript" adds 1.74 bits of data (which tells me that quite a few visitors of that site disable JS, but still most don't).

Enabling JavaScript made me unique (mostly due to browser plugins and system fonts which each provided more than 20 bits of identification).

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[maxwell demon]

If they can't tie this profile to my Twitter handle

If you go to Twitter, Twitter can certainly tie that profile to your Twitter handle.

Re:How does one prevent this ?

[Volguus Zildrohar]

Gee, I'm using Opera Next on a non-retina MacBook Pro... and I'm considered unique among a paltry 3.6M samples. On a site that's *extremely* likely to be visited primarily by Firefox users.

As a long time Opera user, this does not surprise me at all. I cleared my 'browsing data' for the last hour and tried again... a 50% reduction in uniqueness! Huzzah ;)

that old bait and switch

[turkeydance]

and it still works, too.

Impending backfire of doom

[Huntr]

I mean, what happens when 95% of promoted tweets are about porn?

Re:Impending backfire of doom

[ogar572]

Maybe it will open your eyes to new genres

Re:Impending backfire of doom

[gstoddart]

Thereby requiring both eyeball and brain bleach.

Rule #34 is alive and well, and there's some weird stuff out there.

Sell more ads!

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine what could be accomplished if instead of pushing more ads that Twatter actually did something useful. All these black holes of brain power and yet nothing beneficial coming out of them. What a waste...

Tailoring ads to browser history

[TheloniousToady]

I'm sure glad they don't do that on Slashdot.

(Note for troll-happy moderators: the above is what we call a "joke". The giveaway is that it includes a common comedic construct we call "irony". Please note that a joke doesn't have to be particularly what we call "funny" to still qualify as such, as illustrated by this example. YMMV.)

Re:Tailoring ads to browser history

[TheloniousToady]

Note for the humor impaired: The explanation was what we doctors call "the joke". It was inspired by a sequence in "The Meaning of Life". (Search for "what we doctors call" in http://www.montypython.net/meaningmm2.php.)

Left as an exercise for the student: was the above also a joke?

Looks like Twitter wants to join Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Into my DNS blocklist with all your domains!

Time to prevent cross-site access

[Anonymous Coward]

This type of tracking is simple to prevent. Disallow access to any uniquely identifiable information from 3rd parties when on a domain. It can be implemented in any ad blocker, or other plugin for a browser. It really should be the default settings in browsers. I really must question the motivations of the open source foundations when they are assisting in large scale tracking of users and assisting in hiding it.

Its almost like they are run by the NSA.

Here's how

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Twitter's official post regarding this:
"While we want to make our ads more useful through tailored audiences, we also want to provide simple and meaningful privacy choices to our users. Twitter users can simply uncheck the box next to “Promoted content” in their privacy settings, and Twitter will not match their account to information shared by our ads partners for tailoring ads. And because Twitter supports Do Not Track (DNT), Twitter will not receive browser-related information (a browser cookie ID) from our ads partners for tailoring ads if users have DNT enabled in their browser. Our Help Center has more information about these options."

If you're concerned about tracking and DON'T currently have DNT enabled, you really should. It appears opting out of "promoted content" will cause them not to show you tailored ads, but doesn't mean they won't store the data (and possibly share that info with others).

adverts are too late

[zaax]

and that the main problem with adverts they are using history and history is to late, as most people have moved on to otherthings.

Now prediction advertising....

advertising on faulty assumptions

[kisrael]

Man, there's an err of pathos to when similar strategies are applied elsewhere, somehow Youtube noticed I went to a standing desk site, now half my adverts are from there. And also, they don't notice when I've actually bought a damn thing, so more advertising is just down the drain... I guess advertising is such a small % game that they'll take whatever "bump" they can get, no matter how stupid they look.

Re:advertising on faulty assumptions

[hubie]

I was looking for some information on the Caché scripting language, and now a lot of my banner ads are for the women's clothing retailer of the same name.

Re:advertising on faulty assumptions

[Megane]

What happened to the good old days when advertising meant something was merely "sponsored by" a company, rather than a company trying to get up to your face, wave their arms around, and shout loudly in your ear?

Re:I'm glad they're adamantly opposed to surveilla

[Desler]

They aren't opposed to government surveillance. They are opposed to the damage done to their images because their collusion with the government was publicly revealed. Had Snowden never leaked anything you would have heard jack-and-shit from these companies about "reform". They would have just continued writing it off as a cost of doing business.

I'm sure I'll get downmodded again like I was yesterday for pointing this out by the clueless numbnuts who fall for these corporate PR stunts.

Only for the dumb people.

[Lumpy]

If you are not running with adblock on your browsers you deserve to have this crap happen to you. ALL websites need to be treated as hostile (Slashdot included) and you need to run browser extensions that disable and protect you from this crud. Adblock, redirect protectors, privacy reclaimers, etc...

And if you are a good computer person you install all this stuff on every computer you touch.

Re:Only for the dumb people.

[fbobraga]

And if you are a good computer person you install all this stuff on every computer you touch.

But not in phones...

Re:Only for the dumb people.

[Lumpy]

Sadly the phones lack in this regard. Firefox and Chrome on phones are incapable of protecting you. But you can use a blocking hosts file if you jailbreak/root your phone.

Re: Nice....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is he doesn't want a cookie...

Re:Problem?

[mlts]

I have a Twitter account, and that was because during the job hunt a few years back, prospective employers demanded one's Twitter ID, and when I stated that there was no point, I was told the interview was over because I wasn't keeping up with the times and spilling my guts to the world on an hourly basis about my floater/sinker ratio when I hit the bathroom, etc.

So, I have one that follows some sanitized corporate sources, and has not been touched since 2010.

If I want to announce something to the world, I'll buy an ad on Facebook.

Re:Nice....

[findoutmoretoday]

Good thing I never used either FB or Twitter.

if you have seen any FB icon, you're on FB

Re: Nice....

[znrt]

OP is educational. #sarcasm is irrelevant.

Come to the dark side. We have cookies!

[hackertourist]

So THIS is what that slogan is all about...

Inevitable really.

[photosonic]

I remember when cable TV started and there were no ads. You paid a small about every month and you had the blissful ad free environment. We all knew it wouldn't last and that ads would be back at full strength again. That's just the way it works. Get you in on promises of a better experience, then later on change the terms. Do these internet titans have anything better to do with their colossal revenue other than sink it into more ways to see what we do, simply to sell it to advertisers. Twitter was a darling, and now they want to grow up they are eating their parents (us)... for money! Nothing more, nothing less, just a straight up money. Imagine if Twitter was not-for-profit.

Re:Inevitable really.

[Megane]

I remember when cable TV started in the US, it was merely a way not to have to fuck around with an antenna and rotator and still get a crappy signal. The "cable-only" channels came later in the early '80s, but only the "movie" channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.) didn't have ads. Must be a difference in how cable TV started in the UK, I suppose.

I've been happily back to antenna for over a decade, especially since it went digital. (It works as long as you don't care to watch live sports, which are mostly on cable/sat-only channels now.)

#twitterwillsoonbehistory

[vikingpower]

This is the beginning of the end, much more than the end of the beginning, for Twitter. How sad I may find it - I DO think that this sort of ultra-commercial moves will induce a company that was, until recently, a start-up, to be technology conservator rather than an innovator. Interesting times at Twitter are over....

Re:Nice....

[lordbeejee]

Good thing I never used either FB or Twitter.

if you have seen any FB icon, you're on FB

If he really has no facebook&twitter because account, chances are that he is running ghostery and no icons will be seen nor will he be tracked in that way.

Re:Nice....

[lordbeejee]

Scrap "because" in front of account, for readability and stuff :)

Twitter says ...

[Obfuscant]

...you'll soon start seeing promoted tweets that are chosen based on websites you've visited in the past.

No,I won't. I stopped looking at twitter when they started creating fake tweets from advertisers that I couldn't shut off or stop "following", in twitspeak.

And Yahoo Groups has started mixing advertisements in with the group messages as if they were part of the group content.

Re:Twitter says ...

[Kazoo the Clown]

Ads in twitter? I don't see any of this. I don't use a general web browser for twitter at all though. FB on the other hand, I do see "suggested posts", and I don't use a browser there either. So it's certainly possible but I've not seen it yet on twitter.

Re:Nice....

[Kazoo the Clown]

There's several copies of me on FB. If you can't keep them from collecting data on you, overload them with redundant and irrelevant information.

Re: Nice....

[kaatochacha]

He's replacing the guy who used to brag about not having a TV.

Does it even work for Google?

[SmaryJerry]

Google does this to the worst extent. Even if i didn't search for a website, it still some how knows exactly what websites I've been visiting. Every time I buy something online, I start getting advertisements for that exact product, from the company I just bought it from, across Google search pages and on Googles ads on other webpages. How they think this "targeted advertising works" is beyond me. First of all, if I know I like something already I don't need an advertisement. Second of all, I just bought stuff from that site, you don't need to tell me to go back there if I liked it. Thirdly, the only good thing about ads is showing you something you haven't seen before, not telling me what I've already tried. Fourth, stop watching me bro.

Re: Nice....

[maxwell demon]

Yeah it must be awesome to have no friends.

I see. Before facebook started, nobody had any friends whatsoever.

Sorry, but it's the other way round: Facebook "friends" aren't usually friends.

Do most people actually use the twitter app &

[mattack2]

Do most people use the twitter app and web page? I guess for *sending* tweets, but I rarely do that.. Mostly, they're sent to me as IMs, that I browse in the Messages app.

Yahh!!!

[MrKaos]

Yaaah!

Re:AdBlock = Inferior + 'Souled-Out'... apk

[Lumpy]

Yeah, your posting style and that website scream "INSTALL MY TROJAN HORSE" I'll simply copy a hosts file manually and avoid your file.