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MIT's Eyebrowse To Rank and Review Internet Sites, While Retaining Privacy (thestack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the click-here-and-here-and-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes: MIT has launched a new scheme whereby participating users can voluntarily share data on their website viewing habits, via the use of a Google Chrome extension and by signing up to an MIT website. The scheme, called Eyebrowse, began development in 2010 and has been in closed beta for the last 18 months. Cornell information science professor Mor Naaman says of the project: "Data has traditionally been used by anyone from corporations to the government...but the goal of this system is to make the data more useful for the individuals themselves, to give them more control, and to make it more useful to communities."

28 comments

  1. MIT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Tired of hearing about this jaded, politically correct, once was great academic institution.

    1. Re:MIT by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Tired of hearing about this jaded, politically correct, once was great academic institution.

      What the fuck are you talking about?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:MIT by KGIII · · Score: 1

      That's a good question and the AC has not returned to tell you. I'm a bit curious as to why they'd say such a thing. I might be a bit biased but I'm just not seeing any real reason to complain about MIT. Well, not any major reasons. They're pretty aggressive with asking alumni for financial assistance but I'm told that's common - except MIT is pretty damned spamy about it. I sent them a bunch when I sold, they've been begging ever since. *sighs* It works more often than it probably should.

      I don't have anything to compare it to. I've also not kept track. I'd guess that they average one serious plea each month and there's a mention in most communications. I probably give in once out of every six requests. I could unsubscribe and just not open snail mail. I'm a sucker, they're hardly impoverished. I know, I've seen their finances.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    3. Re:MIT by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      They're pretty aggressive with asking alumni for financial assistance

      That's every single institution of higher education in the nation. I got my bachelor's, master's and PhD from three different joints, and there's something in my mail or email every other day.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:MIT by KGIII · · Score: 2

      Now that has to get annoying after a while. I donated a sizable amount when I sold and they've been begging ever since. I get much, much more email from them than I did prior - though I don't think I signed up for anything new and the volume of snail mail is much greater. I do get the newsletter, and I did before, but now I get more than just the newsletter. I can unsubscribe to that but I'm not sure if that will take care of the rest - those don't have an "unsubscribe" link at the bottom.

      I think that means that you should probably never, ever, donate - unless you want the volume to increase. If it's every other day, it'll probably be every day if you donate. Sadly, I'm not kidding.

      As an aside, I didn't know you'd earned your Ph.D. When people introduce me as Doctor, I end up getting asked medical questions - way too often for it to be unique. A few times have been frustrating enough that I've given them "medical advice." Back when I was still gainfully employed, I'd considered giving them my work number and telling them to schedule an appointment. As you are still working, you might want to get creative and take advantage of that. Your spouse is bound to have some stupid friends and dinner parties - I highly recommend such a time and place for experimenting with that. "Oh gosh! I have to tell you, that looks deadly!" How much disruption you cause with this is up to you and how willing you are to irritate your spouse but I'm sure there's some wiggle room in there.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    5. Re:MIT by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I didn't know you'd earned your Ph.D.

      My PhD is in English Literature, so I only tell females that I'm a doctor. Usually, I just give my status as "over-educated".

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re:MIT by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Oh, I learned to *never* introduce myself as "Doctor KGIII" anywhere. That's why I said, "When people introduce me as Doctor ..." My ego isn't that frail. At first, I only tried it because I figured it was shorter to say, "Doctor KGIII." I figured I'd not have to explain it and repeat myself. I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

      The questions about practicum, internship, and clinical were disorienting. One of my first, non-alumni, experiences using the title resulted in myriad questions on those very subjects - with few/no people asking about what field I'd earned my degree. I got/get (not so frequent these days) more questions about where I went than most other subjects. As for my specialty, an answer in 'pattern matching, predictive analytics, and situational specific optimizations based on correlation with systemic normative values, coupled with data-specific modeling, as well as correlation with atypical scenarios with a goal of of increased safety, decreased cost, and greater utilitarian functionality' does not, by any stretch, actually help matters any.

      Yes, it turns out that baffling them with bullshit doesn't mean that they are the least bit dissuaded from asking you if their mole is likely malignant or benign. I can tell them that the odds are slim. I can not do a biopsy on Monday to take a look at it. Well, I can but my doing so is assuming a whole lot of liability and probably not actually going to help.

      So, I *never* introduce myself as a doctor. There's nothing good that can come from that. I actually kind of hate it when others do. I get it, I appreciate it. No, it's not really all that special. I've heard the equivalent to, "Oh, you're still a doctor. You must be smart. You know more about this stuff than I do!" Yes, yes I have been exposed to idiots. And I am smart, I'm smart enough to not accept liability for giving out medical advice to people genuinely concerned with their health-care. I'm just not smart in the ways of that fancy doctorin' or nuttin.'

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    7. Re:MIT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You certainly like the sound of your own voice, don't you? Nobody cares what you do or did, loser.

  2. Blm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    But do they chant Black Lives Matter endlessly in mindless unison?

  3. Biased results by Flavianoep · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As the scheme will only work with Google Chrome (and perhaps, Chromium), the results will only represent habits of user of such browser.

    --
    Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
    1. Re:Biased results by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yes, but do you really want to know what Internet Explorer users are looking at on the web?

      Feature, not a bug.

    2. Re:Biased results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only that, but anything that is purely voluntary is biased from the start.

    3. Re:Biased results by KGIII · · Score: 2

      Opera, Vivaldi, and (I think) most browsers based on Chromium use the same extensions so it may work with other browsers but probably isn't directly supported. I don't imagine there will be much problem using it with any of them unless it has Chrome-specific hooks that I'm unaware of. For example, I've yet to find any extension for Chrome that did not also work with Opera.

      I used to need an extension to import them easily but I could always unpack them, enter developer mode, and add them that way. The Opera extension allows me to just click on them and install them like normal (but needing to still manually enable them). I'm pretty sure that they've now changed this so that they just work without needing the extra extension but I have to be honest and say that I've not actually checked that out as there aren't any Chrome-only extensions that I use.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  4. Teh G and privacy in the same sentence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    is moronic. ++oxy!

    Numbskulls at EmEyeTee.

    1. Re:Teh G and privacy in the same sentence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Teh G and privacy in the same sentence is moronic. ++oxy!

      Nice self reference.

  5. Closed beta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm out of date, but isn't that an alpha?

    1. Re:Closed beta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The difference between an alpha and a beta is that a beta is feature complete.

    2. Re:Closed beta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Are you calling Windows 10 feature complete? ;)

  6. Laugh by koan · · Score: 2

    "but the goal of this system is to make the data more useful for the individuals themselves, to give them more control, and to make it more useful to communities."

    That may or may not be his intention, but once out ti will be used for... "whatever".

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  7. Chrome and privacy?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ummm, mixing Google and "privacy" is an oxymoron.

  8. Can I feed it an image of Xeyes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    $subject says it all. C'mon. Good old Xeyes :-)

  9. Little Brother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just what the world needs. One more set of prying eyes looking over your shoulder.

  10. Help us build it! by Karger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Eyebrowse is open source---at https://github.com/haystack/ey... --- and that we'd love your help making it better.

    I'll also correct a few inaccuracies in the title of the post
    * it won't let you rank or review sites (yet)
    * Rather than unyieldingly "privacy preserving" our idea is to let *you* decide what parts of your web activity you want to share. Many people would like to have a more social experience on the web, for the same reason that people like to go outside, run into friends, and see where crowds are gathering. But we argue that you, rather than the tracking agencies, should be in charge of deciding which parts of your activity should be visible.

    1. Re:Help us build it! by KGIII · · Score: 1

      > people like to go outside

      You do know where you are, right? ;-)

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re:Help us build it! by lolococo · · Score: 2

      Indeed, this is the Slashdot realm, my friend. Forget about going out, is that even a word?

      - our only travels: from the basement to the fridge and back
      - our only desire: more of that nerdy crap
      - our only girlfriends: a set of nicely shaped pixels

      This is who we are!

    3. Re:Help us build it! by whh3 · · Score: 1

      * Rather than unyieldingly "privacy preserving" our idea is to let *you* decide what parts of your web activity you want to share. Many people would like to have a more social experience on the web, for the same reason that people like to go outside, run into friends, and see where crowds are gathering. But we argue that you, rather than the tracking agencies, should be in charge of deciding which parts of your activity should be visible.

      I agree that any unyielding stance is no good. Yes, I also agree that letting the user decide is a good thing. However, the problem comes with reasonable defaults. Most users are not savvy enough (myself included) to know what data is being shared by default. For instance, after reading this headline I would have imagined that there would be a significant amount of privacy protection enabled from the start. Making reasonably safe defaults and adding reasonable, clear, concise warnings is really hard but really important.

      Finally, THANK YOU for a) making the project source code available and b) responding on /. to engage with potential end users. Good luck on the continued success!

      --
      remove nospam. to email!
  11. Retaining Privacy? by WoOS · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The "retaining privacy" part of the posting's title only refers to the ability to prevent some websites to be listed. Everything else is public. From the FAQ:

    • How much of my browsing data does Eyebrowse collect?

      Eyebrowse only collects data from the domains that you give it permission to collect. ...

    • Is the data I put on my Eyebrowse feed public?

      Yes. ....

    • Exactly what fields are collected with each visit?

      From every visit that is collected from Eyebrowse, we collect the time you entered the page and the time you leave the page. From the webpage, we store the url, [....] . Finally, the visit is associated with your Eyebrowse account. ...

    They specifically warn that even an anonymous eyebrowse account can be potentially tracked back to a user by his browsing behaviour. It appears the title of the posting promises more than the mechanism keeps. No wonder for a webservice promising to get you in touch with like-minded (or -browsing) people.

  12. what ever happened to alexa(?) page rank? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Years ago there was a product called something like alexa(sp?) page rank which you installed in your browser and it generated statistics and page ranks based on traffic. Can anyone compare/contrast this idea to alexa?