12-Oct-2010
Have you ever noticed that the internet is spying on you Every time you go online;
sophisticated data miners are tracking your every move. What do they know about
you?
How frequently am I followed online?
Constantly, your computer leaves a unique digital trail every time
you visit a website, post a comment on a blog, or add a photo to your Facebook
wall. A growing number of companies follow that trail to assemble a profile of
you and your affinities. These profiles can contain shocking levels of detail—including
your age, income, shopping habits, health problems, sexual proclivities, and
ZIP code—right down to the number of rooms in your house and the number of
people in your family. Although trackers don’t identify their subjects by name,
the data they compile is so extensive that you can find out who an individual
is without it.
How does the technology work?
The moment you land on a website, it installs a unique electronic
code on your hard drive. Owners of websites originally placed “cookies,” the
simplest such codes, on computers for users’ convenience, in order to remember
things like the contents of online shopping carts. But a cookie placed by one
site can also serve as a tracking device that allows marketers to identify an
individual computer and follow its path on every Web visit. It’s like a clerk
who sells you a pair of jeans at one store, then trails you around the mall,
recording every store you visit and every item of clothing you try on.
“Beacons” are super-cookies that record even computer keystrokes and mouse
movements, providing another layer of detail. “Flash cookies” are installed
when a computer user activates Flash technology, such as a YouTube video,
embedded on a site. They can also reinstall cookies that have been removed.
Such persistent cookies make it virtually impossible for users to go online
without being tracked and profiled.
Who’s doing the spying?
Marketers, advertisers and those whose businesses depend on them.
Most websites install their own cookies and beacons, both to make site
navigation easier and to gather user information. (Wikipedia is a rare
exception.) But third parties—advertisers and the networks that place online
ads, such as Google and iAds—frequently pay site hosts to install their own
tracking technology. Beacons are even sometimes planted without the knowledge
of the host site. Comcast, for example, installed Flash cookies on computers
visiting its website after it accepted Clearspring Technologies’ free software
for displaying slide shows. Visitors who clicked on a slide show at Comcast.com
wound up loading Clearspring’s Flash cookies onto their hard drives, which
Comcast said it had never authorized.
How is personal data used?
It’s collected and sold by companies like Clearspring. Such
information can be sold in large chunks—for example, an advertiser might pay $1
for 1,000 profiles of movie lovers—or in customized segments. An apparel
retailer might buy access to 18-year-old female fans of the Twilight movie
series who reside in the Sunbelt. We can segment it all the way down to one
person, which sells these profiles. Advertisers
use the profiles to deliver individualized ads that follow users to every site
they visit.
Is all this snooping legal?
So far, yes. While an e-commerce site can’t sell to third parties
the credit card numbers it acquires in the course of its business, the legality
of various tracking technologies—and the sale of the personal profiles that
result—has never been tested in court. Privacy advocates say that’s not because
there aren’t abundant abuses, but because the law hasn’t kept pace with
advancing technology. The relevant laws are generally so weak - if they
exist at all - that it’s difficult to file complaints.
Can you avoid revealing yourself online?
Aside from abandoning the Internet altogether, there’s virtually
no way to evade prying eyes. Take the case of a young lady, who learned
just how exposed she was when The Wall Street Journal shared what it had
learned about her from a data miner. Her computer use identified her
as a 26-year-old female Nashville resident who counts The Princess Bride and 50
First Dates among her favourite movies, regularly watches Sex and the City,
keeps current on entertainment news, and enjoys taking pop-culture quizzes.
That litany, which advertisers can buy for about one-tenth of a cent,
constitutes what she calls an “eerily precise” consumer profile. “I
like to think I have some mystery left to me,” she says, “but
apparently not.”
How to fight back against data miners
There are ways to minimize your exposure to data miners. One of
the most effective is to disrupt profile-building by clearing your computer
browser’s cache and deleting all cookies at least once a week. In addition,
turning on the “private browsing” feature included in most popular Web browsers
will block tracking technologies from installing themselves on your machine.
For fees ranging from $9.95 to $10,000, companies like "Reputation Defender"
can remove your personal information from up to 90 percent of commercial
websites. But it’s basically impossible to eradicate personal information, such
as property records and police files, from government databases. “There’s
really no solution now, except abstinence” from the Internet, says a computer science professor. “And if you choose not
to use online tools, you’re really not a member of the 21st century.”
[Courtesy: Internet Articles]
