scourge99
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FTC 'do not track' plan would be a Google killer
December 2, 2010: 1:47 PM ET
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Federal Trade Commission proposed this week that consumers should have a "do not track" option for the Internet, similar to the "do not call" list that exists to block telemarketers.
Sounds great, right? With private data abuses and security lapses constantly popping up in the headlines, the idea of easily taking yourself off the radar might sound appealing.
But the FTC's proposal faces fierce opposition, from both the tech industry and many lawmakers. And if it were adopted, it would open a Pandora's box of unintended consequences.
The FTC's plan calls for a universal add-on piece of software that surfers could install on their Internet browsers to notify websites that they do not want any information about them to be collected. The proposal would need congressional approval before it could be enacted as an industry-wide mandate.
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But those in the industry warn that such an overarching policy would put billions of e-commerce and advertising dollars at risk. It would also unleash all kinds of unintended and undesirable effects on the very consumers the FTC is trying to protect.
Now before I burn the bridge, can anyone defend this practice beyond the excuse of "it will hurt the profits of advertising companies who secretly collect data on you without permission"? Boo-****ing-hoo. We already have 1 big brother. We don't need more siblings, especially when they only have money on the mind.
I couldn't care less for the advertising companies, but a huge portion of the web is only able to provide its content at no cost to the user by selling ad space. Depending on how broad the language is it could very well devalue ad space and threaten that business model. I'm not saying that this will happen, but it's not out of the question.
The bill is not against webspace advertising. I.E., its not against putting signs, ads, popups, etc on your screen when you go to sites.
Its about how companies secretly collect and store every site you go to, what you click, how long you spend there, what you buy, etc.
apologies if I misunderstood.scourge, I suggest you reread my post. You seem to have missed the point entirely
As I state in my post, the impact will depend on how broadly the policy is worded.
I'm not awar of that. Can you source that or reference the action they take?The FTC's testimony states that they already take action against companies that do the sort of thing about which you're speaking.
Is it only in the real world or in cyberspace as well?
I disagree. I does not directly address it but it circumvents it by disallowing that information from being collected.This policy is not targeting this narrow sort of abuse.
Their proposal does not use any more specific language than "targeted advertising," a category which includes even your average plain text google ads. If websites are prohibited from showing such ads, ad space value will fall along with ad revenue. That could easily threaten the business model of a huge swath of the web.
I understand and agree with your concern that laws need to be written concisely and unambiguously. I don't think that's cause enough to dismiss this initiative.
This title is deliberately deceptive.
FTC 'do not track' plan would be a Google killer - Dec. 2, 2010
This is the most bald-faced bit of bull**** I've ever heard.
I fully support online and offline privacy. Its absurd the lengths this writer goes to defend the secret collecting of personal data on people all in the name of MONEY.
Now before I burn the bridge, can anyone defend this practice beyond the excuse of "it will hurt the profits of advertising companies who secretly collect data on you without permission"? Boo-****ing-hoo. We already have 1 big brother. We don't need more siblings, especially when they only have money on the mind.
This title is deliberately deceptive.
FTC 'do not track' plan would be a Google killer - Dec. 2, 2010
This is the most bald-faced bit of bull**** I've ever heard.
I fully support online and offline privacy. Its absurd the lengths this writer goes to defend the secret collecting of personal data on people all in the name of MONEY.
Now before I burn the bridge, can anyone defend this practice beyond the excuse of "it will hurt the profits of advertising companies who secretly collect data on you without permission"? Boo-****ing-hoo. We already have 1 big brother. We don't need more siblings, especially when they only have money on the mind.
If one wants to pay more for the use of a search engine and just about every other use of the internet please keep it to yourselves.
I like having it as it is, and I would bet you have never been harmed because they track what you do.
Or is this about some activity people might be ashamed of? If that is a fear again I say show where you have been harmed.
Unless one is a criminal and your PC is taken by Law Enforcement there is nothing to worry about.
By the way once Law Enforcement has someones PC that person has no secrets because unless you do a very good job of wiping the hard drive it's all there for ever.
Besides everyone is being tracked by big brother with Carnivore, anyway. The FBI once made fun of the accusations calling it a Conspiracy theory because no one had the capability to do it.
Now they are saying: Okay yea we did it, but we stopped. That is the BS.
This title is deliberately deceptive.
FTC 'do not track' plan would be a Google killer - Dec. 2, 2010
This is the most bald-faced bit of bull**** I've ever heard.
I fully support online and offline privacy. Its absurd the lengths this writer goes to defend the secret collecting of personal data on people all in the name of MONEY.
Now before I burn the bridge, can anyone defend this practice beyond the excuse of "it will hurt the profits of advertising companies who secretly collect data on you without permission"? Boo-****ing-hoo. We already have 1 big brother. We don't need more siblings, especially when they only have money on the mind.
It could be compared to a peeping tom watching your wife undress.
The flaw gives sites access to all the other sites that user has visited. Many use it to target ads or see if users are patronising rivals.
The researchers said their work showed a need for better defences against history tracking.
The bug exploits the way that many browsers handle links people have visited. Many change the colour of the text to reflect that earlier visit.
This can be abused with a specially written chunk of code sitting on a website that interrogates a visitors browser to see what it does to a given list of websites. Any displayed in a different colour are judged to be those a user has already seen.
A survey of 50,000 of the web's most visited websites by the team from UC San Diego found 485 sites using this method to get at browser histories, 63 were copying the data it reveals and 46 were found to be "hijacking" a user's history.
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Users can also check how much information they are leaking by visiting a webpage set up by security researchers that tries to grab their history.
Despite these safeguards, the researchers said there was a "pressing need to devise flexible, precise and efficient defenses" against the history hijacking technique.
The research team is now planning more in-depth work that it hopes will result in tools that will more comprehensively defend against attempts to exploit the bug.
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