Archive for the ‘privacy’ Category
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
I’m not sure if I agree with this or not, but the author definitely raises some interesting points …
This week, Google was found out to have been bypassing privacy settings in both Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Apple’s Safari web browsers, as Martin reported here. In a statement on their blog, the Corporate Vice-President of IE blogged “IE blocks third-party cookies unless the site presents a P3P Compact Policy Statement indicating how the site will use the cookie and that the site’s use does not include tracking the user. Google’s P3P policy causes Internet Explorer to accept Google’s cookies even though the policy does not state Google’s intent.”
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Tags: cookies, facebook, google, microsoft, privacy, security
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Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
It’s kind of cool that Google is at least offering to pay people for this information … but also kind of sad to watch the internet slowly morph into a gigantic market research tool.
As soon as you start using the Internet, your actions are tracked by specialized companies. This not only includes web server logs but also third party tracking through advertisement, social networking scripts and other third party scripts.
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Tags: browsing habits, google, internet usage, market research, privacy
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Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
It always creeps me out when an advertiser seems to know a little bit too much about me … stuff like that usually sends me running in the opposite direction.
Last week Google announced changes to its privacy policy that, on the face of it seem perfectly reasonable. In essence they want to treat all the different Google services you use as a single big account and share the data. What this ultimately means though is that the company will know absolutely huge volumes of information about you.
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Tags: bing, google, hotmail, microsoft, privacy
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Friday, January 27th, 2012
Here’s an interesting tool for those of us who are concerned about privacy (and/or those of us who want to check up on our kids’ online activities …)
Keeping track of all your history items can be quite the feat if you are using more than one browser. Privacy conscious users usually delete the information regularly, while the majority of users is likely unaware what their web browser and operating system can reveal about them.
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Tags: browser history, history, History Viewer, privacy, Windows history
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Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
These days, the main purpose of most internet services seems to be marketing research and ad delivery … so much for privacy, I guess.
An announcement was posted yesterday on the official Google blog that indicates that changes are being made to Google’s privacy policies and terms of service. What first looks like a reasonable thing to do is in fact something that will keep privacy advocates up at night. Google will merge their privacy policies, of which about 60 are now available, into one main privacy policy. This on first glance is good from a user perspective, as it improves the privacy policy’s accessibility.
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Tags: google, privacy, terms of service, user tracking
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Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
If this actually works the way that it’s supposed to work, it could be an incredibly helpful tool for those of us who are concerned about online privacy …
One of the new features that Microsoft introduced in their Internet Explorer 9 browser was support for so called Tracking Protection Lists. These lists can be installed in the browser to add protection against tracking, and as a side effect many forms of advertisement. A list of common TPLs is available at the Internet Explorer Test Drive website where they can be installed with just two clicks of the mouse.
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Tags: advertisement, ie9, internet explorer, privacy, tracking, tracking protection lists
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Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
If you’re bugged by web sites who constantly try to sell you stuff based on the other sites that you visit, you might want to check this out:
Most Internet users do not know that every step they make on the Internet is likely tracked by one or multiple companies. Tracking can be loosely divided into a first party and third party group. First party tracking is usually connected to the generation of visitor statistics, and less about the individual user. Third party tracking on the other hand can often be linked to advertising companies who either use the information directly for advertisement or sell user profiles to other organizations and companies.
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Tags: cookies, privacy, security, tracking
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Thursday, December 1st, 2011
I guess this just goes to show that in the age of the internet and mobile devices, one can never be *too* paranoid …
If you have never heard about Carrier IQ before you can rest assured that you are not the only one. Security researcher Trevor Eckhart published a research paper on Carrier IQ, a software that he discovered running on his HTC Android device, in mid November. Lets start at the beginning, and with a simple question: What is Carrier IQ.
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Tags: android, iphone software, mobile phones, monitoring
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Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
On one hand, this sounds like a real pain in the neck, but on the other hand, I usually ignore anything that even looks like it might be an ad anyway …
If you thought it could not get worse with all the tracking and personalization on the Internet, then you have just been proven wrong. According to The Wall Street Journal and other sources, both Visa and MasterCard are planning to tie credit card purchases with personalized online advertisement. What does it mean? You recently bought a new BMW? Expect to see car insurance ads! You are a regular customer at Mc Donalds, Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken? Expect weight loss ads to dominate your ad experience on the Internet. Paid your membership to that online dating site with your credit card? See mail order bride ads.
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Tags: advertisement, credit card, mastercard, visa
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Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
Privacy-conscious Windows users might want to check this one out …
The autocomplete feature can be pretty handy at times. It helps you log in on your favorite website faster or load a website in your browser without having to enter the full web address. Researchers from Minded Security Labs have released a proof of concept that demonstrates how a third party website can get access to a browser’s autocomplete entries (which means stealing).
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Tags: autocomplete, browser security, firefox, internet explorer, security, vulnerability
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