The Government's Plan To Kill Independent Web Sites

Originally posted by golemina
Every platform, every server that I have WORKED with has available to it, the ability to tabulate EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE.

Could you enlighten us with your knowledge as to how such a thing might actually function. Because, in my experience and in my research, such a thing is not possible.

Having worked with the INFORMATION GATHERS...

Perhaps you're referring to direct marketing list aggregators who have much more extensive data compilation resources than third-party banner ad servers?

And with the advent of credit cards/debit cards/personal shopper cards/store membership cards, etc. etc.

Third-party cookies, and third-party servers, have no ability to aggregate the personal information of the first-party, unless the first-party (web site) is engaged in an unethical sharing of data.

I can tell you for a FACT that ALL of the folks who want to target you (or your household) for WHATEVER purpose, KNOW pretty much anything they want with regards to EVERY SINGLE FACET of your life/activities (in REALTIME

).

So you say. But the available information -- in regards to the companies serving third-party banner advertising -- contradicts your statement. Perhaps you can help us by providing more substance than simply your statement with occasional ALL-CAPS?

Have you ever parsed an executable produced by ANY MS software? Have you published an executable?

A broader disparity than apples -v- oranges.

Trust me when I tell you, YOUR info is neatly tucked into the binary image

If you're so adamant, perhaps you can take the time to explain how it is accomplished?

reply to post by mister.old.school

Originally posted by golemina
Every platform, every server that I have WORKED with has available to it, the ability to tabulate EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE.

Could you enlighten us with your knowledge as to how such a thing might actually function. Because, in my experience and in my research, such a thing is not possible.

'In my research...'?



This kind of reminds me of (the obligatory ) conversation the team 'data analyst' has with the 'independent' auditor...

'Do you ever manipulate the data manually?'

'Without supervision?'

Without 18 levels of safeguards?

Mandatory response: "(Of course) No(t!)"



And, of course...



That wasn't RICH enough...

Let's try this:

>'unless the first-party (web site) is engaged in an unethical sharing of data'

No that's NEVER happened... right?

No one has EVER called a friend and (unethically! ) gotten information via credit reporting bureaus...

No one has EVER called a friend at the DOL and (unethically! ) gotten information from the state systems...

No one has EVER called a friend at the PD and gotten (unethically! ) information from the system (shared across the entire WESTERN USA)...

Are you starting to see a pattern there big guy?



Now... Image if MONEY (Lots and Lots of MONEY) was involved?

Hmm....

Are you deliberately ignoring the structure and inner workings of the Internet (and it's companion software)?

Trust me when I tell you, YOUR info is neatly tucked into the binary image

If you're so adamant, perhaps you can take the time to explain how it is accomplished?

I'm surprised rather than admit the limitations of your knowledge, you resort to such a primitive debunkers approach...

Don't bother answering the prior question (it was rhetorical ).

In fact, don't bother answering...

Your 'search' for the truth, apparently has NO interest in anything NOT concordant.

Quite frankly, it puts your piece in an entirely different light...

Much like a DISINFORMATION piece.



You can go back to your rosey glasses colored (ethical! ) world.

(I'm out with your brother )

--------

Thank you SO for your insightful info about ATS.

I've always been stunned at the insane density of ATS. I could never come to understand the business model that would allow ATS due to density x traffic function at what most be a staggerring bandwidth.

Kudos SO!



[edit on 18-6-2009 by golemina]

[edit on 18-6-2009 by golemina]

Originally posted by golemina

Now... Image if MONEY (Lots and Lots of MONEY) was involved?

You still haven't provided anything of substance to the conversation. Do you have anything more than smilies, a caps-lock, and unsubstantiated generalities?


Indeed, I can imagine if a great deal of money was at risk -- hence the motivations behind the potential legislation from Boucher, outlined in the original opening post.

Thanks for the interesting topic.

I'm still a little confused however as to how this would actually be done.

As I understand it the legislation has not been written yet. They're still fact finding. In fact there's a meeting going on as we speak, concerning what if anything should be done.

Boucher has an introduction up at his site as to what he wants. Here's the gist.

* Consumers should be given clear, concise information in an easy-to-find privacy policy about what information a website collects about them, how it is used, how it is stored, how long it is stored, what happens to it when it is no longer stored and whether it is given or sold to third parties.

* Consumers should be able to opt out of first party use of the information and for its use by third parties or subsidiaries who are part of the company's normal first party marketing operations, or without whom the company could not provide its service.

* Consumers should be able to opt in to use of the information by third parties for those parties' own marketing purposes.

Rick Boucher's Site

So here's the way I'm thinking it would work. Take 2 sites which allow third party advertising. Say CNN and this one. When I visit either site a privacy policy will be immediately noticeable. This should tell me what sort of information might be collected by third parties. If I want to allow it, I click opt in.

How would this be done though, I wonder. I'm guessing when I click a website I get the privacy policy, and the opt in option before site entry. I assume some sites would not you let you enter unless you opt in.

With CNN, I might just stop going there. With this site, I'd opt in. I want to see them do well. I don't particularly care about making CNN richer.

This would all be a bit bothersome, but I'm not sure I get the reasoning which suggests smaller sites would suffer. If it's the way I described, it would be big media which would have the larger problem, I think.

[edit on 18-6-2009 by Ntity]

I don't see how this is even viable. Would you have to click "opt-in" every time you do a Google search?

Originally posted by mister.old.school

Originally posted by quackers
Perhaps you might want to educate yourself on what an "opt in" is.

You may be well-advised to do the same in this regard.

The legislation Boucher has indicated he favors is a system where web site visitors see no third-party ads until the user opts-in to see the ads. For example as Boucher would have it, when a page first loads, no ads (from third party networks) would be seen, and a small "I want to see ads, but my surfing habits might be tracked" button will be displayed, and no ads will be seen unless the visitor clicks the button.

This is not an opt-in for data-sharing, it's an opt-in to receive banner ads.

To me, this sounds like a plan to destroy the big sites, and make independent sites thrive. Most of the smaller sites I go to don't have any advertising, and as they are small they can make do with $5 to $20 worth of hosting a month. It's the big commercial sites that will be destroyed, as a site like Facebook uses about $500,000 a month on bandwidth, so needs the adverts to survive. Who is going to click to opt in? Not many I think.

Originally posted by jimminycricket
To me, this sounds like a plan to destroy the big sites, and make independent sites thrive. Most of the smaller sites I go to don't have any advertising, and as they are small they can make do with $5 to $20 worth of hosting a month.

In reality, it's the other way around.

You can have a certainty that the $20/month hosting hobby-sites and blogs that attract hundreds of visitors are of no concern. It is the large-but-still-small sites such as ATS, InfoWars, HuffingtonPost, SlashDot, Digg, and hundreds of thousands of others, with millions of visitors, that have shifted power out of the hands of big media.

These "battle ground" sites are typically either barely making due, or loosing money and cannot afford their own staff of sales people and tech-teams to sell-through and run the banner advertising. So they rely on the third-party networks' economy of scale,
handling thousands of advertisers for thousands of sites.

It's the big commercial sites that will be destroyed

Not true. The big media sites are either part of a larger organization (CNN) or big on their own (Facebook) and have reached the point where they employ their own internal sales staff to sell ads, and run them through their own network of servers -- thereby bypassing the "third-party" aspect of the speculated legislation.

reply to post by mister.old.school


I see what you are saying here about the "third party" part, so pephaps I would say that this is designed to destroy "middle class" websites, and empower independent websites instead. I still disagree with the title of this thread. I would not call any website that uses advertising "independent", I would reserve the use of that word for the sites that have no advertising, and the owner just funds it out of his own pocket.

Recasting it, I would think the title "The Government's Plan To Make the Barrier of Entry to Running a Successful Commercial Site Much Higher" is more appropriate.

The true independent sites are not affected at all by this plan.

Originally posted by mister.old.school
Not true. The big media sites are either part of a larger organization (CNN) or big on their own (Facebook) and have reached the point where they employ their own internal sales staff to sell ads, and run them through their own network of servers -- thereby bypassing the "third-party" aspect of the speculated legislation.

Hang on. I'm not sure the privacy policy at CNN agrees with you.

We also use the services of reputable third parties to provide us with data collection, reporting and ad response measurement, as well as to assist with delivery of relevant marketing messages and advertisements. These third parties may view, edit or set their own cookies. We, our third party service providers, advertisers and/or partners may also place web beacons for these third parties. The use of these technologies by these third parties is subject to their own privacy policies and is not covered by this privacy statement. For more information on how our sites may use third-party ad servers and your ability to opt-out of targeted advertising from such third party ad servers, please see the section below on "Third Party Ad Servers".

CNN Privacy policy

Am I reading that correctly? The way I read it CNN would be just as subject to the opt-in policy Boucher proposes as ATS would. So wouldn't Jimminy Cricket be therefore correct? Big companies like CNN would have more to lose than mid-range sites like ATS. You'd be more likely to click opt-in at a site like ATS, because you'd want to see them do well. With CNN, why bother?

It's not designed to destroy any websites, nor is it likely to contrary to the soap opera class drama outlined in the op. What it is designed to do is inform the end user, you me, everyone else, of exactly where they stand in regards to information collected on them from the respective sites they visit. We need more of this, not less, and if some sites suffer due to their inability to adapt, tough crap. It only means they had a poor business model to start with if the only way they can operate is via information sharing and advertising.

Originally posted by Ntity
Am I reading that correctly? The way I read it CNN would be just as subject to the opt-in policy Boucher proposes as ATS would.

From what I've learned, there are three ranges of what may be classified as "third-party" in these cases;

(1) Analytics -- software service providers such as Omniture that place "beacons" on a page (JavaScript) so that they can collect data on the traffic and utilization patters of web site visitors. It appears that ATS uses "Urchin" or Google Analytics. I believe it's possible for some of these analytics to communicate back to the host (first-party) web site with data that may be used to profile and target advertising.

(2) High-End Ad Servers -- also software service providers such as Double Click who may be able to act on the analytics data from (1) to deliver specific ads on CNN. Double Click also appears able to do their own data profiling, but for high-volume corporate customers, can function on the CNN domain -- doubleclick.cnn.com for instance. Technically speaking, while this may be a "third party", if they're operating on the same domain as the host site (CNN.com), they may be exempt from Boucher's legislation.

(3) Low-End Ad Servers -- Burst Media, Value Click, seem to be popular examples of the major third-party ad servers, operating on their own domain, who deliver ads to the "middle class" web sites. These appear to be the primary target of Bourcher's efforts.

Its bad business. Their are no opt in polices for the bill boards we see on the road or the ads we see in magazines or watch on TV....

This IS meant to destroy small forums...

And can I get this representatives email address. I tried finding it on his website. Ironically I could not. But I would VERY much like to write him a nasty email...much more than just talking about it here.

I mean who does he think he is!!!

That's very interesting Mister Old School, but I'm not sure it's relevant to the point.

Before I start painting up my placards, and preparing to march off to protest, why am I to believe that Boucher wants to protect the third party information of say CNN, but attack the third party information of say ATS. As we've seen they do both collect third party information.

Do you have anything like say a quote on something proposed by somebody in charge suggesting this is an attack on mid-range sites to favor the larger ones?

Good timing - there's an article on the Truth Seeker website this morning which talks about the web becomming the most trusted source of news over tv and radio... kind of points out why TPTB might be getting worried about losing control. The 20th century was full of political leaders who knew that if you won the media battle, you won the war...

www.thetruthseeker.co.uk...

Rew

Lets all do what we can to keep the internet for us all!!!

reply to post by golemina


I'm a programmer, and have created and ran the technical side of an ad network before. I have come up with many ways of targeting ads to people.

And at no time did I know exactly who anyone was or anything.

You have yet to provide any real information on how it is done and have only attacked people personally in response to any questions about what you say.

And while you may get it away with it for some people who honestly don't know one way or another, the buck stops here. Because I do know what is capable. I do have experience in this field and so forth. So I'm waiting for you to "put up".

I can use your IP address to find out where you live. It's called geo-targeting and it's been explained on this site many times by me and others.

I could even get data such as property values for zip codes and areas and target you based on the likely size of your income. IE: The difference between targeting someone in Beverly Hills vs Compton.

There are plenty of things I can do to target ads. But at no point could I ever track what the person does on the internet or know how the actual person is - unless they gave me that information in the form of a user account as I mentioned earlier.

If there was an actual risk then it would be over the net. Tech people are generally completely honest about these things and programmers around the world would be raising alarms. Just look at the alarms given just over norton and it's little .exe thing. And yet, none of that exists for cookies, and the only thing you have done is made claims and ridiculed people for doubting you.

As well, I also buy a good bit of advertising. And yet there isn't a single ad company who offers any kind of targeting system as you mention. If it was possible, it would be something advertisers would love. And yet it simply does not exist anywhere.

The following links may help one to understand the digital 'system' and how it is 'managed'.

Internet privacy?

Computer forensics

Every computer has a unique CID (computer identifier by manufacturer)and MAC address (network card identifier). This information can be siphoned from the 'core' of the internet when 'necessary' of which the CIA, NSA and Mossad and a few others have expertise.

MAC address

Google on for CID though I wish you 'good luck' in your search. This info. seems tightly regulated for 'some' reason.

As an MCSE and CompTia A+ certified person, I can assure you that you are not alone. No fear, speak your mind and perhaps the slaves whom work for these 'institutions' may be awakened by 'your' input. Besides, there are millions of us denying ignorance and only a few of them. The more the world is awakened, the more difficult it is for TPTB to censor/investigate. Conscienceness speaks much louder than Cowardice unto another.


[edit on 18-6-2009 by Perseus Apex]

think about it....what would happen if just 100,000 people awoke in each state in the continental US...that group would be larger than the chinese military....we would then have the "power"...we would be TPTB....theres alot of meaning behind the saying "United we stand, Divided we fall" and "they" know this...why do you think the censors keep loosening the reigns on TV....to make dang sure we are sitting in front of it...those HULU ads are not meant to be funny...they are meant to be sarcastic...because thats exactly how the majority in this country really is...zombies hypnotized by the boobtube...oooooo...look at the shiny keys(jingle jingle jingle)...they are attempting to keep us as infants...only giving us enough "schooling" to keep a job and line the pockets of the ones who whip your metaphorical backs...."We are raising the terror alert to hotpink today".. a day later..."Americans do not need to worry, go shopping, visit Disneyworld"..sound familiar?...."today 10 people died of the mysterious pork flu"....yet every morning people are lined up at Rockafella Plaza to catch a glimpse of Big Al Roker....its all fraudulent...its all bunk....the news is so entertaining and mysterious that we should have to pay 8 bucks to see it and should get a complimentary popcorn! wake up for heavens sake...nice thread by the way

And one more thing... it does not matter if they goes as far as killing the internet for the simple fact we are waking up and this movement is spreading alot faster than the pork flu or anything they try to inflict on us...if my sorry butt can become aware i know many many many more can and we really should not be relying on the internet to spread the message in the first place .... yes use it while we can but it should not be the sole outlet for this knowledge all of you are bringing to the surface.... because more than likely...nature will bring down the net before TPTB grow a pair big enough to do it themselves

Originally posted by mister.old.school

Originally posted by Ntity
Am I reading that correctly? The way I read it CNN would be just as subject to the opt-in policy Boucher proposes as ATS would.

From what I've learned, there are three ranges of what may be classified as "third-party" in these cases;

(1) Analytics -- software service providers such as Omniture that place "beacons" on a page (JavaScript) so that they can collect data on the traffic and utilization patters of web site visitors. It appears that ATS uses "Urchin" or Google Analytics. I believe it's possible for some of these analytics to communicate back to the host (first-party) web site with data that may be used to profile and target advertising.

(2) High-End Ad Servers -- also software service providers such as Double Click who may be able to act on the analytics data from (1) to deliver specific ads on CNN. Double Click also appears able to do their own data profiling, but for high-volume corporate customers, can function on the CNN domain -- doubleclick.cnn.com for instance. Technically speaking, while this may be a "third party", if they're operating on the same domain as the host site (CNN.com), they may be exempt from Boucher's legislation.

(3) Low-End Ad Servers -- Burst Media, Value Click, seem to be popular examples of the major third-party ad servers, operating on their own domain, who deliver ads to the "middle class" web sites. These appear to be the primary target of Bourcher's efforts.

1 and 3. This can give you some data, but it would never be complete data. It requires the code to be on all websites etc. 1 and 3 are basically alike in function, it's just a difference in what is done with the data.

2. This is a bit more interesting. If you login to a site like CNN and have an account, then they can keep track of all that you view on the site and the ads you click or do not click. However, this will be limited to only the individual site(CNN) and among only those.

Double click could however log your IP address while on CNN and apply that to their system which is like 1 and 3 to get a bigger picture. As that in itself provides a way to "link" the personal information from the CNN account to their main system.

However, this would require CNN to directly give DoubleClick the personal information on the account. If it were to reach the light of day that companies were doing things such as this, both of those companies would virtually die over night. They would be on the internets blacklist as a security list. Programs like AVG and spybot etc would completely block the domains, and you would find little tidbits about how to manually block domains via your HOSTS file. Which bypasses the normal DNS servers you use and directs them to no where, which is how ad blocking programs work.

Of course, it then requires more than a cookie to do all that. And in fact, they wouldn't need a cookie at all to do that. Your ip address combined with logging your IP address to the account at CNN by logging in would be what does it. The cookie in that case only gives the benefit I mentioned earlier which is to allow it to continue even if the IP address changes.

I don't login to google and then do searches or surf the web at the same time for this reason. I doubt they really do it, but who knows. I know if I login to google then I am giving them a way to link personal information with their ad network. I also do not use their browser and such. So thats really just a matter of spreading things out a bit. Obviously if you shop at the same store all the time, they are going to know what you want. I can walk to the 7/11 down the street and I could just mutter the word "cigarettes" and they would be able to give me exactly what I want. I call that a convience, not a privacy issue. When 7/11 starts telling me my grocery list, then that is a privacy issue.