Have we been betrayed?

[sunshinenbrick]

 

I wonder if its possible to have a plugin that say, showed where you're info was going... like a sort of reverse tracker?

 

Being in advertising I fully understand why all of these things are part and parcel of the free Internet, but if we are having to become increasingly transparent with our data then it only seems fair for it to work both ways.

Well, all the browser info is automatically going to every url your browser opens, be it directly in the address bar or indirectly by the site's HTML it displays, for example in Script Tags' "src"-attributes or even Img Tags as well (so-called "tracking pixels" then, as you won't see them when they're 1x1 pixels in size and only contain transparent background). So in order to see "that" simple plugins like FireFox' "Tamper Data" and/or the Developer Toolbar/Browser Inspect features will already suffice.

 

The cookies, however, are usually "domain-based" anyways, and in every browser I know you can easily obtain a list of all cookies a page you're on currently uses/stores on your PC, which domain they are from/for/used by, and what's stored inside them, usually just a simple string, as nothing else can be stored inside them anyways. Sometimes, however, said string is a serialized array of multiple parts of information (simply speaking a whole list of things), not rarely also encoded (Base64, etc.) or even encrypted for security reasons, so you can't immediately "read" it at all. But like I said, they're mostly only used to store simple identification data like unique ids or tokens (random letters, numbers, and or signs), anyways.

 

So there you go.

 

 

Um... what I meant was to see who is buying and selling the information in the long run.

 

So in the same way that a company might collect data and track their customers, the customer could track the revenue created by the advertising.

[DoctorKaizeld]

thank you Drake for explaining that, cookies are nothing to really be supper worried about. they arent trojans or anything.

[HeyYou]

I disable third-party cookies, specifically so it is a bit more difficult for various advertisers to track me. That, and ad-block edge..... I don't see ANY ads. :) And it doesn't hurt my feelings one bit.

[MotoSxorpio]

Microsoft has been tracking us the whole time. Anyone remember the Alexa Toolbar? Now it is telemetry and metadata. Get used to being tracked, its what everyone "wants", convenience of multiple devices using each others resources.

[sunshinenbrick]

Microsoft has been tracking us the whole time. Anyone remember the Alexa Toolbar? Now it is telemetry and metadata. Get used to being tracked, its what everyone "wants", convenience of multiple devices using each others resources.

 

I completely get this. I just hope that everyone remains in on the conversation and that the interests cater for the many and not just a few.

[HeyYou]

Most of the ms tracking stuff is opt-in. If you enable the customer service experience, or whatever they call it, you send telemetry, if you don't.... well, you don't.

[sunshinenbrick]

Most of the ms tracking stuff is opt-in. If you enable the customer service experience, or whatever they call it, you send telemetry, if you don't.... well, you don't.

 

Wonder if the guys at the NSA and GCHQ respect this?

 

Customer Experience Programs and variations of it are small potatoes though... there is a much wider and more subtle operation of data collecting, buying and selling that the consumer has little choice or control over, and perhaps might not even be aware of. We are lured by the convenience and services that are provided, and let us not forget also that there is only a relatively small pocket of people who have any idea how it all fits together.

 

Blocking everything is data too as sites are forever getting smarter at sniffing stuff out. Using a certain combination of security settings and plug-ins could very well have you flagged for some reason and to some end. Whether its slower speeds or lesser priority, being grouped as 'noncontributory' or labelled as having 'suspect behaviour'.

 

Instead of everyone being coerced into some sort of cat and mouse game, perhaps a two-way transparency is the way forward if privacy is officially a thing of the past.

[Triert]

Yes, and there are many backdoors already that have taken your information.

 

I wouldn't have so much of a problem with people selling my data if I could put a price on what I'm worth.

 

Think of it, these internet companies are making money out of your personal data, if they want to take your data, they should buy it or pay for it. Who else thinks that's a good cause for rebelling against these companies?

[Lisnpuppy]

That is the issue that people need to take up. You have to think of your data as a commodity. Until people do and they force laws that do then this is going to keep happening everywhere.

 

So if you don't like data collection then start a push in your government to have them act on this. They would have a really hard time explaining why they don't want to do this in some way.

[sunshinenbrick]

The UK government (maybe the US too) want to standardise encryption so as to always have a backdoor...

 

Its difficult to know who to run to, and with things like TTIP it doesn't paint a pretty picture.