it almost sounds like it is done on their end, not a cookie on your pc
Posted on 07/31/2010 5:05:40 AM PDT by dennisw
Hidden inside Ashley Hayes-Beaty's computer, a tiny file helps gather personal details about her, all to be put up for sale for a tenth of a penny.
The file consists of a single code— 4c812db292272995e5416a323e79bd37—that secretly identifies her as a 26-year-old female in Nashville, Tenn.
The code knows that her favorite movies include "The Princess Bride," "50 First Dates" and "10 Things I Hate About You." It knows she enjoys the "Sex and the City" series. It knows she browses entertainment news and likes to take quizzes.
Ms. Hayes-Beaty is being monitored by Lotame Solutions Inc., a New York company that uses sophisticated software called a "beacon" to capture what people are typing on a website—their comments on movies, say, or their interest in parenting and pregnancy. Lotame packages that data into profiles about individuals, without determining a person's name, and sells the profiles to companies seeking customers. Ms. Hayes-Beaty's tastes can be sold wholesale (a batch of movie lovers is $1 per thousand) or customized (26-year-old Southern fans of "50 First Dates").
"We can segment it all the way down to one person," says Eric Porres, Lotame's chief marketing officer.
One of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found, is the business of spying on Internet users.
The Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the broad array of cookies and other surveillance technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. It reveals that the tracking of consumers has grown both far more pervasive and far more intrusive than is realized by all but a handful of people in the vanguard of the industry.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Full text here if not at original link——>>
Cookies don’t normally operate across domains. Is this a new scheme to get that to happen?
Save for later.
This, added to those store cards we’re given regularly, which keep track of our purchase preferences, etc?
doesn’t spyware block this?
Big Brother watching us is really the only way to truly combat terrorism.
I mean if computers are monitoring us, then as soon as I type something to someone, it’s picked up and analyzed and the next thing the “thought police” are at the door.
No lingering doubt to where this world is going....1984 Brave New World...read like it’s happening now. Abortion rights....and the internet is paving the way.
I think this is tin foil.
Anti-spyware generally warns of cookies. Cookies are a convenience facility that lets a web site mark you to remember you in the future, and for hard core privacy you should wipe them all from your browser at least once a session, if not deny them altogether. (Denying them everywhere would make it impossible to do things like log into FR.)
>> Cookies don’t normally operate across domains.
They don’t have to, if they’re cookies from a third-party tracking ad url you fetch when you visit site A, then site B, then site C, ...
I read the article. It breathlessly informs of the same supposedly evil stuff that one would realize has been going on on the WorldWideWebz for years, if one spent five minutes thinking about it.
I mean, c’mon... why do you THINK the Fox News website takes a week and a half to load? ;-)
sfl
Don’t allow third-party cookies, use a hosts file, run Adblock Plus in Firefox and run Malwarebytes occasionally. Fox loads in a “flash” with no annoying ads.
Because FOX is the nexus of the vast right-wing conspiracy against H!?
Thanks for the tips.
I use solution (E): “Don’t visit Fox News much”.
http://www.ghostery.com/
It’s not just Fox News.
it almost sounds like it is done on their end, not a cookie on your pc
We can damage this company with a concentrated effort to provide false information...make it popular to do online...if enough people join in and it is publicized, company’s would be reluctant to pay this spy company for their data...the data would be viewed as invalid.
Another ‘guard’ program one should use is Keyscrambler.
It scrambles many entries one types, including Google search, passwords, etc.
It is free for personal use for IE and Firefox.
http://www.qfxsoftware.com/index.html
This is pretty creepy. Not sure if it’s connected but Monday I went to Pottery Barn online looking at sofas and chairs. Now on certain websites with advertisers, I get pop up ads for PB sofas. It’s probably some cookie but it still creeps me out.
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