Life is a long preparation for something that never happens - WB Yeats
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Spying is a growing business on the web
ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING businesses on the Internet is spying on users.
The Wall Street Journal was shocked to discover how much time and effort is being spent on technology to snoop on Internet users' web surfing habits.
The Journal looked into the broad array of cookies and other Internet surveillance technologies and discovered that tracking of consumers using cookies and web beacons has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive.
In the US the top 50 websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning.
The Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions.
Apparently advertisers are paying top dollar to follow people around the Internet, wherever they go, with highly specific marketing messages.
The advertising industry claims that it is all harmless, there is nothing to see here, move on please. This is mostly because, like most advertising departments, they think they are important and not a cancer on the world's commerce belching vacuousness.
David Moore, chairman of 24/7 RealMedia was quoted as saying that when an ad is targeted properly, it ceases to be an ad, it becomes important information.
MSN.com planted a tracking file packed with data that predicted a surfer's age, postal code and gender, plus a code containing estimates of income, marital status, presence of children and home ownership.
Microsoft said it didn't know how the file got onto MSN.com and claimed that the tool didn't contain "personally identifiable" information.
So far the US courts have not ruled on the more complex cookies. They deemed the simple ones okay because those were considered as innocuous as having a friend listen in on a phone call.
For those of you worried about your privacy, our suggestion is to set your web browser preferences to reject most cookies. µ
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It appears that the USA Today may have been correct in their 15 year-old estimation that the Internet, as far as privacy is concerned, is an “Electronic Pandora’s Box.” It’s unclear whether Congress will move on privacy legislation and while the Federal Trade Commission is expected to release a report in support of a Do-Not-Track list, for now it appears that the user is on his own. The best solution to confronting privacy online may be taking it into your own hands. http://bit.ly/b32VvQ
will prevent most of this. NoScript can be set to put buttons on the file menu bar to allow or clear cookies, clear cache, allow images, and change the User Agent (, or more).
Web browsing doesn't *require* an "exchange of information", that's just scummy commercial interests looking to make a buck by retailing Chinese gadgets, and offensive in general. All that information can also be used to deduce who's likely to lead the resistance, John Conner, for when they get the robots.
"Local Shared Object" on wikipedia.
Then action accordingly - manually or with a batch file or a cleaner of choice that deals with this stuff.
BetterPrivacy (to get rid of LSOs - a.k.a. Flash cookies).