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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."
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.
Then:
Users: hey can you please stop tracking us so much?
Social Media: screw you
Now:
Social Media: hey please don't use stuff to block our tracking thanks
Users: screw you
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Exactly. I recently got fiber and now have a 40mbps connection with much lower latency than the previous connection. But, sites load just as slowly now as they did then in many cases. Some of them have actually gotten worse.
So, now I use additional adblockers in addition to noscript, request policy and ghostery. Not to mention privacy badger to further screw up the tracking.
The worst thing is that there's no purpose the only times I ever click on ads are either a complete mistake or because the information is a simple text ad that's relevant to the page I'm looking at. I don't care what I looked at earlier this morning, the page I'm on has information that's relevant to what I want now, not what happened last month.
And it will always be this way. People will only put up with so much intrusion before creating tools to block it. And those tools will swing way back past the point they would have accepted as reasonable... Go ahead... Kill the goose.
People will only put up with so much intrusion before creating tools to block it. And those tools will swing way back past the point they would have accepted as reasonable... Go ahead... Kill the goose.
Exactly- the backlash is almost always greater than what it would have been if they hadn't pushed so hard to begin with. They're always too greedy, too aggressive, too intrusive...and then they complain when people assert themselves and push back.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The most current popular browsers all have an agenda and don't have your best interests in mind. Neither does the HTTP standard. I keep thinking that one of these days we're going to see something like netnews or gopher make a comeback. Most major ISPs dropped netnews support ages ago, but it's really not that difficult to configure a store and forward network. Perhaps some people are already doing this and just not talking about it that much on the web.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Pretty much this.
We're seeing the same now with ads and ad companies. Ad companies used to pretty much piss on it when their users asked them to maybe tone down the invasiveness of their ads, thinking that there was nothing their users could possibly do to fight back until users did actually start fighting back in masses. Now we see companies actually suing users over using ad blockers, trying to use copyright as a reason (because that ad blocker altered the page and it's no longer how they made it, and they claim copyright does not allow you to alter it. I don't make this up). Mostly out of desperation because people do now use ad blockers in masses, threatening the business model based on ad revenue.
The same can easily happen to invasive tracking if companies that make a living of tracking user habits don't watch out. There is already a movement where people, knowing they cannot avoid leaving footprints, want to poison the data pool by dumping data trash into it to make data indistinguishable from noise, invalidating the data gathered altogether. For now, this is, as it was with ad blockers, a minority of users. Not enough to threaten the tracking business model.
This can stay that way if, and only if, trackers don't go overboard and piss off the average user enough that they start using data poisoners.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What do you mean "if".
In a typical day I will see websites with HTML5 pop-overs, pages not showing content, and (my personal favourite) a banner saying "we can see you're blocking our ads. If you want to see our content disable adblocking", to which I direct my middle finger at the content provider and close the tab.
Yeah, that must be why Chrome's percentage of the browser market has been tanking... oh wait.
It's pretty simple - if you don't like what a company is doing, don't use their products. But people don't like to do that - they want to have their cake and eat it too. I quit Facebook a couple years ago. Most of my family (including my wife) continues to use it, though; and it's the standard place family photos and family news first get posted. Sometimes you miss out on certain things by making the choice to not participate... and that's the hard part of making that decision.
Not using Chrome, and using an alternative search engine like DuckDuckGo, is an easier choice to make - but it still requires a conscious decision and a change in your personal habits.
Obviously this isn't 100% effective - Facebook and Google have lots of ways to track individuals, including back room deals with companies like Verizon for access to super cookies and whatnot. But it's at least making their records incomplete and harder to tie to you as a specific individual... not to mention the tacit approval people who continue to use their services are providing them.
#DeleteChrome
if you don't like what a company is doing, don't use their products.
I'd rather modify something I use to fit my needs. For example, it seems like a lot of the stuff I buy needs a extra hole drilled somewhere or a lanyard attached or another switch installed or whatever. I even modify sandwiches I buy to suit my tastes (literally) by adding my own mustard or mayonnaise whatever.
Now I know it's not the same with a website as I'm not paying for anything on the site directly, but I may refer others to the site or possibly buy a product they sell (not through a platform-served media ad, obviously), or I may comment on something or share a link and drive their engagement and reach up a little bit. By participating in the site I'm helping them out in one way or another, even if not directly. Who knows, I might even send 'em a few bucks via Paypal (yes, I've done that a few times).
I mean, if you don't want your site browsed then don't put it on the internet, or insist on some sort of client login. But regardless, I have to say that I don't lose any sleep at night by blocking potentially harmful ads (malware) or by stopping the site from tracking me.
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But people don't like to do that - they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Of course we do, and so do you. We'd all like to have our cake and eat it, who in their right mind wouldn't?
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I quit Facebook a couple years ago.
I never had a Facebook account specifically because of their blatant disregard for their user's privacy. So I'm in agreement with you there.
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not to mention the tacit approval people who continue to use their services are providing them.
Well, it may or may not be tacit approval if I'm actively taking steps to preserve my privacy and the security of my PC when I visit the site. They're welcome to try and track me or advertise to me, and I'm welcome to try and tailor my user experience to my liking by preventing it. If it's bad enough then I won't go back but we both know that the last thing they really want.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
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.
Privacy Badger doesn't spam me on Slashdot.
"It may even arguably be a good thing by only serving you ads for things you might be interested in."
My personal data is my property. It's my right to decide who may have it, how valuable it is, and under what terms if any I will part with it. Seeing ads I might be interested in when I'm not even seeking to buy something is nowhere near as valuable as my privacy. Not even in the same ballpark. I'd be willing to bleed on a battlefield to protect the right to privacy and personal data.
The money isn't even going to me for my data, these companies are stealing what doesn't belong to them and selling it.