US senator introduces legislation aimed at protecting online privacy

[Nowak]

Perhaps you guys should listen to @Delicieuxz, as they are more well-versed in privacy-related subjects than I am. That being said, you absolutely should contact your senators and urge them to support this bill. Your privacy is important, and being able to control your information online would be a huge boon towards ensuring your privacy and security.

[Delicieuxz]

In the article about "probabilistic matching" that I linked to in my previous post, there's a link to a website called AdChoices, which the article say is an "industry program" that few people know about, that claims to opt people out of online ad tracking by submitting a request to participant ad companies.

 

I tried it, and it first does a scan of your browser cookies to see which companies are tracking you. The scan I did found 135 ad companies tracking my activity. I selected to opt-out of all companies' tracking, and 60 of them were reported as being successfully opted out from. I tried to opt-out of all the remaining tracking companies, and an additional 3 were reported as being successfully opted-out from. I tried once more to opt out of the remaining tracking and it was reported that 0 additional companies were able to be opted out from.

 

If other people want to give it a try, post here how many companies it found were tracking you, and how many it successfully opted you out of being tracked by.

[Trik'Stari]

1 hour ago, TempestCatto said:

I'm glad you and I think alike here. I have a national cycle track in my town and holy shit those guys genuinely deserve to get run-over. 

It's because they and pedestrians have "the right of way". Leads to a false sense of security which gives them a sense of entitlement.

 

Pedestrians and cyclists should not have the right of way when they are somewhere a car is supposed to be. Conversely a car should never have the right of way somewhere a pedestrian or cyclists should be (NOT. THE. ROAD.)

[ARikozuM]

Just now, Trik'Stari said:

It's because they and pedestrians have "the right of way". Leads to a false sense of security which gives them a sense of entitlement.

 

Pedestrians and cyclists should not have the right of way when they are somewhere a car is supposed to be. Conversely a car should never have the right of way somewhere a pedestrian or cyclists should be (NOT. THE. ROAD.)

On the highway, I can understand. But city and town streets require them to be on the road (at least in NJ and FL). 

[justpoet]

2 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

I'm gonna be honest, you mention the "Do Not Call List" that thing hasn't worked for me in years. No matter how many times I register my number, I still get spammy shit. I do hope this "Do Not Track" thing works out better.

 

Though that raises a question for me. Let's say you're listing to Spotify without premium. You get ads, and usually those ads are meant to be local so you don't hear something for a store or car dealer that's not in your town. Does that still count as "tracking" or "targeted"? 

Building a list of people who "opt out" isn't ever effective, as somebody who doesn't care will eventually use the list as known valid information to target.  This is why Do Not Track for phones works for legitimate US companies, but is a giant target for out of country scams (which often run through various Caller ID hacks/spoofs or through VoIP distribution to be local to the caller's number).

 

Targeted advertisements, such as "browser has an IP from within X state" or "people connected through this group of cell towers", are fine and don't build data on you (though it is temporarily available data that is currently tracked as well).  Targeted advertisements, such as "show to people over 40" when you're logged into FaceBook or Google after giving them your birthdate, are fine and don't build further data on you (though "don't show me targeted advertisements" should be an option on a platform like those).

 

Tracking, on the other hand, is different.  Tracking is when they say "person x visited y website and clicked on things relating to z topic" and "same person x was also in location y using cell service z" and a database is built about everything about you, where you go when, what you buy where, and not just what you've handed over already (such as the birthdate above).  There's actually a few early famous tracking bits related to Target predicting pregnancy and targeting new mom adverts to people before they even knew they were pregnant…and that was just based on one store's information via rewards card, not the vastly larger amount of tracked information that a google, facebook, or one of the online data brokers have for you.

[justpoet]

3 hours ago, Mr. horse said:

For a cell phone. Turn on air plane mode and turn it off.

for dsl and most cable internet providers power off the modem amd power it back on. 

It's rather simple. But you are right. Most people probably don't even know what an IP address is.

 

but even with out a new IP on online tracking is stoped after you log out of everything and clear out your browser history and stuff.

None of that works to stop online tracking, even if it worked (DHCP usually gives you the same IP address, for example).  People may remember the tech stories long ago about the "super cookie", and how it hid in everything…that still happens, though fortunately less people have flash/java/silverlight/etc installed and active than before. However, even more importantly, impressions are fingerprinted, so even after you wipe cookies and log out of everything, they still know it is you and just put it all back.  You can test yours and read more about it here:

https://panopticlick.eff.org and scrolling down to the fingerprint section.

[justpoet]

6 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

Super cookies are usoly removed when wiping you interent session in most modern browsers. Not that it really matters. These tracking things have almost no effect on the user and what effect they do have isn't negative

Except, a session is just a session.  That's kinda what the super cookie was designed to get around…it isn't a normal browser cookie.  You also need to go remove all the data from Flash, Java, Shockwave (if anybody remembers or still has it), Silverlight, etc, at the same time.  But, thanks to fingerprinting, they'll still all just put it back after you connect to one of the sites with tracking anyway.

 

As for no effect on the user…and it not being negative….that's partially true via perspective, but also not from a grand scheme of things.  One can certainly argue that sites being paid more for their advertisement placements is a good thing, and companies not wasting money showing advertisements to people who wouldn't be interested is a good thing too.  But, that's really where the "good" side ends.  Privacy and anonymity are no longer in your hands when tracking is in place.  Then there are things like Google handing over every cell phone user's data and history that was within the area of a crime, and people being falsely targeted by law enforcement, etc.  The slippery slope gets pretty nasty, even if it doesn't affect most users today.

1 minute ago, Mr. horse said:

All of witch can be changed/removed

Except that it really can't be changed and removed.  They still have the data, and they still track it all.  The only difference if you're not logged in when it happens is that you don't see that they know it, just that recommended things subtly change over time.  Even when Google said they would add a feature to remove this, they said from the specific database, not from all their tracking.  They're not stupid, that's how they make their money, so they're not going to GIVE you a way to remove their revenue source.

[justpoet]

6 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

All three of those are beyond the comprehension of 95% of users out there, in my experience

6 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

Very true. But that 95% also does not care about there privacy and only want something to bitch about.

 

Sad, but true, on both accounts.  Fortunately, some of us know better and can try to help them have a better life, even if they don't know about it…much like when water standards were put into place for drinking water so lead pipes and the like couldn't be used anymore.  Most people had no idea, and it got them water just fine.

[justpoet]

2 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

Not if you don't use there service

 

2 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

What do you expect? Read the TOS. you don't like it don't use it

If those were true statements, this wouldn't be much of a problem.  However, as soon as you go to any site that has a "like us on FB" or "Share us on twitter" button, you're known.  You don't have to have an account, nor use their service directly, which is a large part of the problem.  If FB wants to keep track of what you do while you're on FB, that's fine, that's purely TOS stuff.  However, when they do it for every other site as well, even if you're not an FB user, that's not so fine.

[Nowak]

19 minutes ago, Mr. horse said:

How is that a problem.

What does it matter that Facebook or Twitter know that you were on X website? Are people that paranoid or doing things so bad that a site like Facebook can't know what there doing?

Hawley said when he introduced the bill (a video can be found on his Twitter) that even if you choose to opt out of a tracking service, it doesn't actually opt you out. It still collects your data, even though you tell it not to. Both Android, of which he used as an example, and Windows 10 are guilty of this. Which is also what this bill aims to curb, as well as targeted advertising continuing even if you choose to opt out of that.

 

If you choose to opt out of something, it should opt you out, but in most cases it doesn't. Since there's no legal precedent against "you're opted out but not really" in the United States, European Union, anywhere in Africa or anywhere in Asia against this, they can get away with it. This bill, if passed, establishes a legal precedent against "you're opted out but not really" practices. This is why this bill is important.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

7 hours ago, Mr. horse said:

If you need privacy online your very likely doing something you shouldn't be doing.

Eric Schmidt said almost the exact same thing. 

 

Shortly afterwards he ordered everyone at Google to stop speaking to Cnet because the latter "invaded his privacy" by publishing all kinds of info about him ... info they found using only Google searches and products.

 

 

 

Everyone has all kinds of things to hide from almost everyone else.  Dozens of times every day you make a choice not to tell someone something because you aren't comfortable with sharing that info with that person, because you consider it private.  Not only in real life, but on the internet too.

 

Oh, and while the proverb says it's futile, you do need to lead a horse to water in an attempt to make it drink.  So ...

 

[Delicieuxz]

3 hours ago, Mr. horse said:

How is that a problem? If you need privacy online your very likely doing something you shouldn't be doing.

That's Nazi propaganda, said by tyrants and exploitative corporations to put people under their thumb and make them their subjects and vulnerable to their unilateral judgment.

 

 

 

Privacy is a human need and right.