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The FCC Says It Can't Force Google and Facebook To Stop Tracking Their Users (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The FCC announced that it will not prevent Facebook, Google, and other websites from not honoring users' Do Not Track requests that make it difficult for them to track online activities. The Washington Post reports: "The announcement is a blow to privacy advocates who had petitioned the agency for stronger Internet privacy rules. But it's a win for many Silicon Valley companies whose business models rely on monetizing Internet users' personal data. It's also the latest move in an ongoing battle to defend the agency's new net neutrality rules, which opponents warned would result in the regulation of popular Web sites and online services. By rejecting the petition, the FCC likely hopes to defuse that argument. The rules, which took effect this summer, allow the FCC to regulate only providers of Internet access, not individual Web sites, said a senior agency official."
Privacy Badger
Because it's the FTC's job, not the FCC's.
The Federal Trade Commission regulates things like this -- business interactions with customers -- in the same way it regulates the federal Do Not Call list.
If you are asking the FCC to regulate this, you are asking the wrong regulatory body; you might as well be asking the FDA to regulate it, because you think that being tracked all the time is injurious to people's mental health.
The FCC Says It Can't Force Google and Facebook To Stop Tracking Their Users
... nor should they. Nobody is forcing anybody to use gmail and facebook. If you don't want your personal data monitized - and I know this is a heretical idea - how about don't use services "whose business models rely on monetizing Internet users' personal data"?
I know somebody is going to say, "... But tracking cookies! But like buttons!" But you don't have to load those either!
Seriously people, FB became "the internet" for hundreds of millions of people because they all decided to use it. Nobody held a gun to their heads. You can communicate just fine on the internet without using FB.
Own up to your own choices. You want such a service? Fine, go ahead. You don't? Fine, then don't. But don't use a service whose business model is to get all up in your business, and then bitch when they get all up in your business. They are so huge because you all moved everything you do onto there! It wasn't a fucking random number generator that made them so huge.
It is impossible and futile to enforce. And besides the government needs the info also. What could be more convenient than to put Google, et al in charge of *information retrieval*?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Only if you've got Google Fiber.
Have gnu, will travel.
"The announcement is a blow to privacy advocates who had petitioned the agency for stronger Internet privacy rules. But it's a win for many Silicon Valley companies whose business models rely on monetizing Internet users' personal data."
In other words, it is a loss for people. Last I checked the entire purpose of the FCC was to protect people from large corporate entities. Clearly laying down on the job today.
One that keeps track of which sites set what cookies, then randomly swaps them with someone else using the plugin.
I dunno, is it better to use plugins to block tracking, or to use plugins to fuzz the data enough that the tracking is useless?
Oh good, I was already worried something happened to you when I didn't see you advertise your hosts file in a thread about security and privacy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If the FCC had this power, you could ask it about all manner of other stuff- "hey FCC, these adblockers are interfering with our, uh, 'transmission'", etc.
Maybe.
The reason this is ok is because there's plenty of workarounds, and they are becoming more common. If we really care about this, we could get laws passed, but expecting this to fall under the FCC in the first place seems hopeful and blind to the possible downsides.
I use the Mozilla-based browser, SeaMonkey. Anyone using Firefox should also be able to do the following:
1. On my PC, I marked cookies.sqlite as read only. Web sites might think they are setting cookies, but those cookies disappear as soon as I terminate my browser. For sites where I want to keep cookies, I terminate my browser, change cookies.sqlite to read-write, start a new browser session, visit only the one site, use the Cookie Manager to delete unwanted cookies, terminate my browser, and change cookies.sqlite back to read-only.
2. I installed the AdBlock Plus extension for my browser. I do not use any of the subscription sets of filters. Instead, I create my own filters.
3. I installed the Secret Agent extension from https://www.dephormation.org.u... for my browser. This sends ever-changing request headers when I request a Web page. Each time I request a new Web page or reload the current page, the Web server thinks I am a different user. This often makes Web sites respond as if I were in a different nation.
4. I occasionally capture the response headers when I request a Web page. If I see responses from unrelated domains, I check the Web site's privacy policy. I successfully made a bank and a credit union remove hidden responses to Facebook that violated their privacy policies. For the credit union, I had to file a formal complaint with their federal regulatory agency to get a satisfactory response.
5. I often use anti-malware applications to scan for tracking cookies, deleting any that are found.
Terrified? Far from it! I've dedicated my life to improving security in IT, anything that takes me closer to that goal is something I welcome. If computers were safe and secure, I could move on to more promising and rewarding venues. Maybe go into game design and for a change write software that people WANT to use.
Do you have a faint idea how lonely it gets in itsec? Nobody wants to talk to you. You're about as popular as the guys from controlling.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sure, the FCC claim they can't interfere with any idiot who agrees to the TOS and Privacy Contracts of these companies like Google and Facebook; but what about the internet users who have nothing to do with these companies? Their rights are being stomped on because Google and Facebook are tracking THEM too. The FCC should have to step in here because these are the innocent being effed over by these large companies where they have no legal standing to do so.
Privacy Badger doesn't spam me on Slashdot.
Facebook tracks everybody, not just users of their service.
THAT is the issue.
I've never created a facebook account, but those DAMN "like" buttons track everywhere we go on the internet.
THAT is the issue.
I don't have any relationship with facebook.
I don't want any relationship with facebook - EVER. But I cannot stop them from tracking me online.
THAT is the issue.
The same would apply to google if I wasn't addicted to google voice.
Troll, Redundant, Overrated, Offtopic, yeah those mods fit. If you don't like being marked that way, don't post the same shit over and over and expect people to not mod it down. It is also wildly offtopic, but you already knew that.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
There is nothing like a week of anal rape to change your perspective on corporate versus individual rights.
No, you don't get lubricant.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"