Did the lawsuit cause them to pause and reconsider or was it the loss of big customers?
Web-Analytics Firm KISSmetrics Reverses Course on Sneaky Tracking
The online analytics firm KISSmetrics quietly overhauled its web tracking methods over the weekend, and is now permitting users to block its surveillance, in a hurried response to a report slamming the company for using sneaky techniques to track web users who visit some of the biggest sites on the net.
… One of the issues was a tracking technique that bypassed traditional cookies by storing unique identifiers in temporary documents that browsers use to speed website rendering. These so-called ETags acted just like cookies, even if users erased or blocked traditional cookies.
Sometime over the weekend, KISSmetrics published a longer privacy policy, and changed the “How It Works” page on its website to reveal that the company would stop using ETags. “As of July 30, 2011 KISSmetrics uses standard first-party cookies to generate a random identity assigned to visitors to our customers sites,” the new text promises. “This identity by itself does nothing.” The company added in aseparate privacy policy for end-users that users can now set an opt-out cookie that excludes them from tracking entirely — as one can do with many online advertising companies and some analytics companies.
That change contrasts sharply with the company’s initial response, which was to tell Wired.com that the persistent tracking and cookie re-spawning was legal, and then to tell users that if they wanted to stop the tracking they could install a browser add-on called AdBlock Plus.
Analysis after the surveillance...
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23912
Face-ID Tools Pose New Risk
Julia Angwin reports:
As Internet giants Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. race to expand their facial-recognition abilities, new research shows how powerful, and potentially detrimental to privacy, these tools have become.
Armed with nothing but a snapshot, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh successfully identified about one-third of the people they tested, using a powerful facial-recognition technology recently acquired by Google.
Prof. Alessandro Acquisti, the study’s author, also found that about 27% of the time, using data gleaned from Facebook profiles of the subjects he identified, he could correctly predict the first five digits of their Social Security numbers. [...and your receipts provide the “last four” digits. Bob]
Read more on Wall Street Journal
(Related)
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/027911.html
Study: Faces of Facebook: Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality
Faces of Facebook: Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality - FAQ only - See also slides here.
Need to read this. Will I be able to 'discover' who (in Congress, for example) looks at what websites?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=23890
Congress out to spy on your ‘puter
Julian Sanchez (@normative) strips away some of the b.s. masking a proposed federal law:
If Congress had to name laws honestly, it would be called the “Forcing Your Internet Provider to Spy On You Just In Case You’re a Criminal Act of 2011″ — a costly, invasive mandate that even the co-author of the Patriot Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), says “runs roughshod over the rights of people who use the Internet.”
But because it’s disguised as the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act,” the House Judiciary Committee approved it last week by a wide margin — even though it’s got little to do with child porn and won’t do much to protect kids.
The centerpiece of this ill-conceived law is a sweeping requirement that commercial Internet providers retain a one-year log of all the temporary Internet Protocol addresses they assign to their users, along with customer-identification information. The Justice Department says this will help track down child-porn peddlers by linking online activity and real-world identities. But the government would be able to access that sensitive data for all kinds of investigations, most of which would have nothing to do with child porn.
Read more on: NY Post.
This is cute and should be copied in other areas...
Digest of Motor Laws
The AAA Digest of Motor Laws is an online compendium of laws and rules related to driving and owning a motor vehicle in the United States and Canada.
I can remember when (all three channels of) TV was free!
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-watch-web-media-center-guide-2011/
DOWNLOAD Watch The Web: Media Center Guide 2011
… you can cut the cord with your traditional cable or satellite service, but before you do, you should know what you’re getting into. Internet television exists, but to call it mature would be disingenuous. You should know what to expect before making the leap. Matt Smith will help you prepare.
Our latest guide “Watch The Web: Media Center Guide 2011″ gives you the information you need to cut the cable and get your favorite shows online. Download it now, for free!
DOWNLOAD Watch The Web: Media Center Guide 2011
Damn. Why didn't I think of that... Live “off the grid” with all the benefits of living on the grid!
Swede Arrested For Building Nuclear Reactor
"A 31 year old Swedish male was arrested for trying to build a nuclear reactor in his apartment. He got hold of radioactive material thru mail-order purchases and from smoke detectors. [Nothing illegal there... Bob] Police raided his apartment after he had contacted the Swedish Radiation Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten) to inquire if it was legal to construct a nuclear reactor at home."
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