Online privacy leaks worsen; "Do not track" gains steam

Online privacy leaks worsen; "Do not track" gains steam

blogs.reuters.com

“Click the local Home Depot ad and your email address gets handed to a dozen companies monitoring you. Your web browsing, past, present, and future, is now associated with your identity… Keep tabs on your favorite teams with Bleacher Report and you pass your full name to a dozen again. This isn’t a 1984-esque scaremongering hypothetical. This is what’s happening today.”

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.reuters.com
cyberlaw.stanford.edu

We (especially here on ATS) are pretty paranoid about what the Government knows about us and what they're doing with what they know. What I don't hear nearly as often is what the corporate world knows about us and what they're doing with it.
There are no perfect solutions short of 'going off the grid' but there are steps we can take to help keep things a bit more secure.

blogs.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I never honestly believed I had any privacy at all.

That is why I will never put my real information on the Internet. I keep myself guarded from invasion at all times.

In fact, my ISP bill isn't even in my name. Isn't that quaint?

But in the rare event you did find out virtually everything about me, you will find great boredom and non-eventfulness.

I have no credit card, no bank account, nothing man. I'm living it up by laying low.

However I do hope the corporate and government yes-men will read my comments one day, it may wake them up out of their stupor.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Good man. Guard your personal info like a hawk or you might find out that someone else has a credit card or bank account in your name. You don't want that, i can tell you from personal experience.

reply to post by NoArmsJames

99% of the time I am off the grid. Even online, not a single cookie is allowed on my system without my personally ok it. No Tracking. Use of proxy servers, even in search I almost always use an HTTPS proxy.
I just went to home depot and went to the local add. The add seemed to work but I could tell by the way the site was reacting it was indeed attempting to place trackers on my system ..kinda like it was throwing up because it couldn't get to me....
I stay in complete private browsing mode, and very little gets through without my direct ok. If we desire to remain
free and safe some things must be given up. but I don't miss all the silly adverts dancing around.
They cannot get into your system unless you allow them to. there are ways to keep this stuff off your machine. I do have a truly comfortable browsing experience.
I have my browser set to delete everything, including history cookies etc every time it is closed. And in an 8 hour period I probably close my browser 30 or 40 times just to empty it. then I run CC cleaner and wipe free space at the end of every session. Lots of trouble to stay safe.
Even if I want to do online banking I enable flash and scripts etc allowing cookies..do my business and then clean it up and enable all the anti flash and script add on stuff. If you want to be safe and and prevent this stuff you must take the time and steps to do so. These [I call them hackers] companies will take advantage if you let them ...the trick is not to let them..
I stopped Home Depot in its tracks, and even found a good sale tonight. they did not get a single cookie on my system. Nor did they get an emai address. Wouldn't matter, I own my own web site with 300 aliases available to me to change at a whim. If I get spammed I delete the address and make up another. there are ways
DH

Originally posted by NoArmsJames
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

Good man. Guard your personal info like a hawk or you might find out that someone else has a credit card or bank account in your name. You don't want that, i can tell you from personal experience.

They can't possibly achieve that.

I know I can't get a credit card or bank account in my name.

They do this off line too, if you buy something on a tv ad or from a catalog you get put on a list of suckers! Lol I know because we get 3 calls a day from telemarketers and only purchased one thing on tv and now we get telephone spam!

reply to post by NoArmsJames

What I don't hear nearly as often is what the corporate world knows about us and what they're doing with it.

They're passing it along to their Corporate Intelligence Agency, private military and private police forces of course.




S&F&

reply to post by NoArmsJames


Funny how we here on ATS are worried about this kind of thing, yet ATS as a site has ad's everywhere. Useless as they were they are more useless with this news item posted. Clicking ads is definitely out of the question for me and blocking them is definitely part of my day-to-day.

Site's that rely on ads should be barred from your surfing habits to teach these corporate hags a lesson.

Originally posted by DavidsHope
reply to post by NoArmsJames

 

99% of the time I am off the grid. Even online, not a single cookie is allowed on my system without my personally ok it. No Tracking. Use of proxy servers, even in search I almost always use an HTTPS proxy.
I just went to home depot and went to the local add. The add seemed to work but I could tell by the way the site was reacting it was indeed attempting to place trackers on my system ..kinda like it was throwing up because it couldn't get to me....

I stay in complete private browsing mode, and very little gets through without my direct ok. If we desire to remain
free and safe some things must be given up. but I don't miss all the silly adverts dancing around.
They cannot get into your system unless you allow them to. there are ways to keep this stuff off your machine. I do have a truly comfortable browsing experience.
I have my browser set to delete everything, including history cookies etc every time it is closed. And in an 8 hour period I probably close my browser 30 or 40 times just to empty it. then I run CC cleaner and wipe free space at the end of every session. Lots of trouble to stay safe.
Even if I want to do online banking I enable flash and scripts etc allowing cookies..do my business and then clean it up and enable all the anti flash and script add on stuff. If you want to be safe and and prevent this stuff you must take the time and steps to do so. These [I call them hackers] companies will take advantage if you let them ...the trick is not to let them..
I stopped Home Depot in its tracks, and even found a good sale tonight. they did not get a single cookie on my system. Nor did they get an emai address. Wouldn't matter, I own my own web site with 300 aliases available to me to change at a whim. If I get spammed I delete the address and make up another. there are ways
DH

As clean as your computer might be, you can't clean the servers you visit. Fact is, what's on your system is becoming less important and now these advertisers are realizing storing your data on their servers gives them ownership and if the laws come down saying not to collect this, they still have reams of data they collected prior.

You can't stop a web site from tracking you, sure you could anonymize but even that is easily defeated.
Although what your doing is commendable, don't believe for a second your living in a virtual Troy.

Its pretty basic, grab someones IP and submit it to a database along with the URL they hit and any ads served to them noted in the database. They can do this anytime you visit any site anywhere by offering sites plug-ins...an ebay plug-in, facebook plugin, whatever...something all you webbies love integrated into your sites...especially social networking sites...they all share the information they all gather and now they know what you like, where you visit the most, what you buy, etc....

So your computer didn't save one trace of that? Big deal, their database did!
Even ATS collects your information, they have the ability to track you wherever you are here at any given time, they provide ads and those ads want something in return....

Originally posted by DavidsHope
reply to post by NoArmsJames

 

...
I do have a truly comfortable browsing experience.
I have my browser set to delete everything, including history cookies etc every time it is closed. And in an 8 hour period I probably close my browser 30 or 40 times just to empty it. then I run CC cleaner and wipe free space at the end of every session. Lots of trouble to stay safe.
Even if I want to do online banking I enable flash and scripts etc allowing cookies..do my business and then clean it up and enable all the anti flash and script add on stuff. If you want to be safe and and prevent this stuff you must take the time and steps to do so.
...

You and I must have very different definitions of "comfortable".

ghostery.com, although even they have a facebook page to go an like. It stops the tracking cookies , blocked 6 of 6 on thread page and 5 of onthe write the post page

reply to post by EspyderMan


I share your hate towards ads, and employ adblock plus to help reduce those ads, but at the same time I understand that ads are necessary -- ads help keep websites free afterall.