On Demand
C is for Internet Cookie
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Behavioral targeting on the internet is nothing new. Companies have been monitoring your consumer behavior for almost as long as the internet has been around. But as technology changes, should the rules that safeguard consumer privacy change as well? Alissa Cooper of the Center for Democracy and Technology breaks down the issue.
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are verizon and other isps now trading on the behavior of their customers?
For example, can a marketer now forget about cookies and just go right to the isp s themselves for user profiles and if they aren't doing this yet, why not and will they in the future?
so does my boss know i spend the whole day here??
Better stop looking at naughty sights at home it sounds like.
I thought we have right to privacy at home to be as weird as we want to be.
Katie
other than my wife would care if i look at "Better stop looking at naughty sights"
You should recruit her. I look all the time and my husband joins me!
How does this analysis extend to digital cable TV implementations, for example, Verizon FIOS (only an example), where a household or even in some cases a particular TV can be identified with its IP address?
kathie
i meant to type:
other than my wife who would care if i look at "at naughty sights"
sorry for the confusion
Cookies are so 1998 -- get to TODAY pls
5--hjs, Katie has a point. I'm aware of at least one court case where the prosecutor attempted to sway the jury based on occasional--not regular--Internet browsing.
right get a room!
Can you comment on Google's policies of saving people's searches long term? Do they sell the information? My impression is that the search stream can only be connected directly to a specific person (rather than to their browser session as with cookies) if the person has a Google account (like for gmail, etc.). Is this true?
ISPs /google/ doubleclick
hjs,
I meant the naughty sights too.
They aren't collecting political affil...are u high?
david! 9
what context? divorce or crime?
hjs, crime. Specifically, one visit to the NAMBLA website was supposedly proof of pedophilia.
Isn't this kind of consumer targeting exactly what the Pharma industry getting in trouble with? Data mining? Microtargeted marketing? What is the state of consumer protection policies in the Web environment?
D!
oh. well, i do have to draw the line some where!
[[BL Moderator Notes: Thanks for the energetic comments, but please remember the posting policy, which asks that you keep your posts on topic and relevant to the discussion on the air.]]
I called in to the show. My site, www.priceprotecr.com, uses opt-in.
We think tracking by the big players (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, etc.) can help place more relevant, useful ads, but it limits choice and doesn't offer the user the option to opt-out easily. One useful site is www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp, the Network Advertising Initiative. It checks your browser for cookies you may not know you have, and allows you to opt-out (using, ironically, a cookie!).
CAN-SPAM covers e-mail, but surfing is largely unregulated and hard to regulate. Users should stay informed, make their preferences known to advertisers, and make the choice to opt-out as best they can.
By modifying the way they browse the Web, people can take near total control of the way Web sites interact with their computers.
Use the Firefox2 browser with a few key addons from the Firefox site--CookieSafe, NoScript, and Adblock Plus (all free).
CookieSafe blocks all cookies by default. In two clicks you can “opt in” to cookies on a site, and your decision is remembered. When opting in, you can choose whether a site’s cookies are deleted when you close your browser or allowed to remain on your computer across browsing sessions. You can also opt in to cookies on the main, parent site while still denying the 3rd parties by default.
NoScript blocks all active scripting by default. Active scripts are small programs that Web sites run on your computer. They’re what enables 'rich' content online. Unfortunately they also can be used to track you and attack you. NoScript works just like CookieSafe: you can opt in to scripts on any site you want while denying 3rd parties.
Adblock Plus automatically blocks nearly all ads from your browsing experience. It prevents the the ad from even downloading to your computer. As with the others, you can easily allow whatever sites you want to show ads while blocking all others by default.
ABOUT GOOGLE: it is not necessary to allow cookies or scripts to Google-search.
Not covered above: IP address logging. If someone knows a way to block this that doesn't involve the Tor network or proxies, I'd like to hear it.
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