However I do not think the body text is sensible in that context.
You are not saying that privacy is a right; what you are saying is that not being tracked is a right. But what is the limit?
The way targeted ads work is pretty straightforward. ad networks like Google adsense put ads on a variety of websites, those advertisements also track users because by virtue of your system connecting to see the ad, they receive information about your IP address and your browser headers, just like any website. Since they all connect to the same server, that information can be amalgated together and parsed. For example if you visit a lot of programming sites on their network, the ads supplied to you will be programming-related.
The reason I ask- "What is the Limit?" is because it is somewhat arbitrary to say that information presented under no pretense of confidentiality (your IP address and browser header which are provided with zero terms) should somehow be protected, and that the server system that receives this information is under some obligation to never record that for future use.
it also fails to consider that you are tracked in everyday life. That cashier that knows your name? That's a form of tracking. If they see you get a lot of Beets, they might tell you that you might want to wait until tomorrow since they will be a third the price. That's tracking. It is exactly the same, in premise, to tracking on the web.
Also, here's a unique idea- Why don't you turn on Do Not Track in your browser? Even if an ad agency decides to ignore it at least then the browser header makes it explicit that the information is provided on the basis that it will not be tracked. That is not the case when you simply visit a website. Your browser gives your information freely and the server has no obligation to protect that information in any way, shape, or form. And any litigation that attempts to make that sort of protection mandatory will be difficult to enforce to begin with- not to mention opening pretty much anybody up to litigation. If you recognize a user from one site on another site, can they sue you because you violated their privacy rights?
However I do not think the body text is sensible in that context.
You are not saying that privacy is a right; what you are saying is that not being tracked is a right. But what is the limit?
The
way targeted ads work is pretty straightforward. ad networks like
Google adsense put ads on a variety of websites, those advertisements
also track users because by virtue of your system connecting to see the
ad, they receive information about your IP address and your browser
headers, just like any website. Since they all connect to the same
server, that information can be amalgated together and parsed. For
example if you visit a lot of programming sites on their network, the
ads supplied to you will be programming-related.
The reason I
ask- "What is the Limit?" is because it is somewhat arbitrary to say
that information presented under no pretense of confidentiality (your IP
address and browser header which are provided with zero terms) should
somehow be protected, and that the server system that receives this
information is under some obligation to never record that for future
use.
it also fails to consider that you are tracked in
everyday life. That cashier that knows your name? That's a form of
tracking. If they see you get a lot of Beets, they might tell you that
you might want to wait until tomorrow since they will be a third the
price. That's tracking. It is exactly the same, in premise, to tracking
on the web.
Also, here's a unique idea- Why don't you turn on
Do Not Track in your browser? Even if an ad agency decides to ignore it
at least then the browser header makes it explicit that the information
is provided on the basis that it will not be tracked. That is not the
case when you simply visit a website. Your browser gives your
information freely and the server has no obligation to protect that
information in any way, shape, or form. And any litigation that attempts
to make that sort of protection mandatory will be difficult to enforce
to begin with- not to mention opening pretty much anybody up to
litigation. If you recognize a user from one site on another site, can
they sue you because you violated their privacy rights?
I don't know where the line should be drawn, but I agree that there should be one. I think I'll leave that up to the discretion of the actual lawmakers. After all, this is just a petition, not a bill. And frankly, I've got a character limit I've got to work with, so I couldn't go into that much detail even if I wanted to.
And yes, I already have Do Not Track turned on. I also lock the door to my apartment at night, but that doesn't mean I think burglary should be legal. And not everyone is as computer savvy as you or I. Some people don't realize they're being tracked or understand how to protect themselves. I have a good friend of the older persuasion to whom emailing a link is to advanced a computing task to preform without help. This is why we have laws, chemosabe. To protect those who cannot protect themselves, and to ensure that those who can don't have to do so alone.
Equating "If you recognize a user from one site on another site" with being tracked is like saying unexpectedly running into someone from work at the grocery store is the same as stalking them. Even a small child can tell that the two are by no means the same, and even they won't be fooled by any slippery slope nonsense attempting to convince them otherwise.
A grocer might recognize you in the checkout line from the last time you visited, but he won't follow you around the store constantly watching and painstakingly recording your habits and behaviors as you peruse the isles—what you look at but don't take, what you take and then put back, where your eyes linger and for how long, what isles you visit and how often—and then tag along as you go about your other errands to do the same, follow you home, and then to work the next morning so he'll know where else you go, what you do on your time off, what your job is, what you're working on there, who your friends and coworkers are, who you talk to. To say the two are exactly the same is patently absurd. Our city fathers may be a few bricks short of a pyramid, but I trust that even they can tell the difference between "hey, nice to see you again" and "I've been watching you while you sleep", even if you cannot.
When a human being stalks you or spies upon you without your knowledge or consent, that is very much illegal, even if in their twisted mind they believe they are doing you a favor. The same should be true when a website or corporation does the same. When a policeman gives you a neighborly hello (though that doesn't happen much anymore), this is a nice gesture. When the NSA constantly monitors your emails and texts in secret, this is an outrage. Why should non-governmental entities not be held to the same ethical standard?
Equating "If you recognize a user from one site on another site" with being tracked is like saying unexpectedly running into someone from work at the grocery store is the same as stalking them. Even a small child can tell that the two are by no means the same, and even they won't be fooled by any slippery slope nonsense attempting to convince them otherwise.
You have drawn an analogy of your own here, between ad-based web tracking and stalking. I remain unconvinced that this analogy would have merit, though, so the colourful illustrations that follow that build on that premise become word fodder. I find that web-based tracking and stalking to be particularly different primarily because Stalking is an "Active" action, and web-tracking is entirely passive. A stalker takes an active role in acquiring information about somebody; perhaps they rifle through their garbage, or they sit in a tree with a pair of binoculars, or they follow them around. In contrast, online tracking via advertisement and analytic services is passive, so they are certainly different. Note that the grocery-store case is also mostly passive for obvious reasons; this is why I also disagree that my former analogy requires the grocer/cashier to take an active role in finding and collecting information. The premise between them is similar; that is, online tracking tracks, collates, and aggregates whatever data it can by law and uses that to change information about how it is presented. In the same way, grocery stores will track, maintain, and aggregate information about their shoppers; they will also even sell that information- such as personal information provided on a membership card- to interested third parties such as snail-mail spammers. That information is being provided by the person, not unlike the web-based case.
To say the two are exactly the same is patently absurd.
I said they were exactly the same in premise, such that they work via the same concepts. Both are passive collection of information, whereas you are trying to effectively say that web-tracking is a more active collection. I disagree.
Our city fathers may be a few bricks short of a pyramid, but I trust that even they can tell the difference between "hey, nice to see you again" and "I've been watching you while you sleep", even if you cannot.
I'm unsure whether your passive statements suggesting I lack intelligence are supposed to change my mind, but I've found they tend to have the opposite effect. I've never been convinced by arguments that seem to rest on a axiom of "If you don't agree with me, you must be stupid" .
Why should non-governmental entities not be held to the same ethical standard?
The issues regarding the NSA is that they were using active tracking, such that systems were compromised and activities could be monitored directly from that system, including offline activity. Typically, Internet marketing/advertisement/targeting/etc, is passive. It very much goes back to the stalker analogy you mentioned- the activities of the NSA are stalking since they are active, but web-based tracking is passive, so the same analogy would be a misrepresentation of what it actually entails.
Looking into it, though- I've just now noticed that the U.S doesn't have any of the same laws regarding privacy as pretty much every other first-world country. the U.K and Canada, for example, both have a variety of privacy laws that control how and what can be collected and by whom. I know when the Personal Information Protection Act of British Columbia was passed I had to provide consent for newsgroups as well as advertising to collect information. I allowed enough such that I was seeing ads for Resharper instead of Tampax, personally. Looking into it I am surprised that the U.S actually doesn't seem to have laws on this, and realistically all I can find is that the Federal Trade Commission has privacy regulations. So that taken in mind, I think it is a good idea to implement legislating the "regulations" and catching up with the rest of the western world. It does appear that there have been about a dozen bills introduced to do so, but none of them passed.
Actually, that none of them passed does raise perhaps more questions, particularly when it comes to congressmen and corporate interests, as looking through the bills that were not passed it seems that corporate concerns were the only thing that prevented it.
You have drawn an analogy of your own here, between ad-based web tracking and stalking. I remain unconvinced that this analogy would have merit, though, so the colourful illustrations that follow that build on that premise become word fodder. I find that web-based tracking and stalking to be particularly different primarily because Stalking is an "Active" action, and web-tracking is entirely passive. A stalker takes an active role in acquiring information about somebody; perhaps they rifle through their garbage, or they sit in a tree with a pair of binoculars, or they follow them around. In contrast, online tracking via advertisement and analytic services is passive, so they are certainly different. Note that the grocery-store case is also mostly passive for obvious reasons; this is why I also disagree that my former analogy requires the grocer/cashier to take an active role in finding and collecting information. The premise between them is similar; that is, online tracking tracks, collates, and aggregates whatever data it can by law and uses that to change information about how it is presented. In the same way, grocery stores will track, maintain, and aggregate information about their shoppers; they will also even sell that information- such as personal information provided on a membership card- to interested third parties such as snail-mail spammers. That information is being provided by the person, not unlike the web-based case.
I'm afraid you've once again missed the point entirely. The fact that a tracking cookie need not physically change its location to follow you does not change the fact that it remains with you constantly, without your consent and sometimes even without your knowledge, even after you've left the site on which it originated, for an indefinite amount of time until you become aware of its presence and take measures to rid yourself of it. The fact that it doesn't have to lift a finger to scratch notes in a notebook does not change the fact that is recording everything you do in minute detail, what searches you make, what websites you visit, who your email contacts are, what pictures you look at, what videos you watch, etc for the entire time it is there. The amount of effort or lack thereof exerted to do that does not change the fact that it is being done.
I said they were exactly the same in premise, such that they work via the same concepts. Both are passive collection of information, whereas you are trying to effectively say that web-tracking is a more active collection. I disagree.
CPR and crucifixion work via the same concept. Both manipulate the muscles responsible for breathing from without by the application of external force, but they are hardly the same. Hanging does not work via the same concepts as crucifixion, but the task it is intended to accomplish and indeed does accomplish is the same.
Again, you are missing the point. The issue is not one of "passive" vs "active" but one of omnipresence (or at least, a very heartfelt attempt at omnipresence) and the minute detail of the data collected while omnipresent. If it will help you understand, imagine that the clerk is not following you, but has instead handcuffed himself to you, more than content to be dragged along behind you so long as you remain in his sight, and that instead of taking notes he merely has a photographic memory with 100% total recall.
I'm unsure whether your passive statements suggesting I lack intelligence are supposed to change my mind, but I've found they tend to have the opposite effect. I've never been convinced by arguments that seem to rest on a axiom of "If you don't agree with me, you must be stupid" .
Oh, no that has nothing to do with whether or not you agree with me. Mere disagreements I can handle no problem. No, what frustrates me is when people continuously fail to grasp extremely basic concepts, which just so happens to be what I was remarking upon (and indeed, what I actually said when making said remarks). As for what your opinions happen to be once the concepts in question are understood.... well, we'll cross that idiom when we come to it.
Although i agree with you that all this tracking is bad, you technically agreed to it when you signed up for the site that tracks you.
You don't want anyone to track you? Don't use websites that use you info..
Not true. Many websites will do it even when you're not a registered member "just in case" you ever decide to sign up. Facebook is probably the worst offender in this regard, since they'll track you even if you never actually visit Facebook, so long as you've been on any page that has any sort of Facebook integration (which, at this point, is pretty much any page), even if you never use or even notice the integration features.
Hi folks, I’ve written an online petition to the White House to prohibit websites from tracking user browsing habits for the purposes of target advertising, tailored suggestions and similar, and if you could take the time to review and (if at all possible) sign it, I’d really appreciate that. I believe privacy is an inalienable human right and ought not be infringed upon so lightly, even if the purpose is relatively benign.
I need 180 signatures for the petition to become visible to the public. Right now, it can only be accessed directly from the link I provided.
Also check me out on:
WordPress, Etsy, and Spore.
I agree with the premise.
However I do not think the body text is sensible in that context.
You are not saying that privacy is a right; what you are saying is that not being tracked is a right. But what is the limit?
The way targeted ads work is pretty straightforward. ad networks like Google adsense put ads on a variety of websites, those advertisements also track users because by virtue of your system connecting to see the ad, they receive information about your IP address and your browser headers, just like any website. Since they all connect to the same server, that information can be amalgated together and parsed. For example if you visit a lot of programming sites on their network, the ads supplied to you will be programming-related.
The reason I ask- "What is the Limit?" is because it is somewhat arbitrary to say that information presented under no pretense of confidentiality (your IP address and browser header which are provided with zero terms) should somehow be protected, and that the server system that receives this information is under some obligation to never record that for future use.
it also fails to consider that you are tracked in everyday life. That cashier that knows your name? That's a form of tracking. If they see you get a lot of Beets, they might tell you that you might want to wait until tomorrow since they will be a third the price. That's tracking. It is exactly the same, in premise, to tracking on the web.
Also, here's a unique idea- Why don't you turn on Do Not Track in your browser? Even if an ad agency decides to ignore it at least then the browser header makes it explicit that the information is provided on the basis that it will not be tracked. That is not the case when you simply visit a website. Your browser gives your information freely and the server has no obligation to protect that information in any way, shape, or form. And any litigation that attempts to make that sort of protection mandatory will be difficult to enforce to begin with- not to mention opening pretty much anybody up to litigation. If you recognize a user from one site on another site, can they sue you because you violated their privacy rights?
I don't know where the line should be drawn, but I agree that there should be one. I think I'll leave that up to the discretion of the actual lawmakers. After all, this is just a petition, not a bill. And frankly, I've got a character limit I've got to work with, so I couldn't go into that much detail even if I wanted to.
And yes, I already have Do Not Track turned on. I also lock the door to my apartment at night, but that doesn't mean I think burglary should be legal. And not everyone is as computer savvy as you or I. Some people don't realize they're being tracked or understand how to protect themselves. I have a good friend of the older persuasion to whom emailing a link is to advanced a computing task to preform without help. This is why we have laws, chemosabe. To protect those who cannot protect themselves, and to ensure that those who can don't have to do so alone.
Equating "If you recognize a user from one site on another site" with being tracked is like saying unexpectedly running into someone from work at the grocery store is the same as stalking them. Even a small child can tell that the two are by no means the same, and even they won't be fooled by any slippery slope nonsense attempting to convince them otherwise.
A grocer might recognize you in the checkout line from the last time you visited, but he won't follow you around the store constantly watching and painstakingly recording your habits and behaviors as you peruse the isles—what you look at but don't take, what you take and then put back, where your eyes linger and for how long, what isles you visit and how often—and then tag along as you go about your other errands to do the same, follow you home, and then to work the next morning so he'll know where else you go, what you do on your time off, what your job is, what you're working on there, who your friends and coworkers are, who you talk to. To say the two are exactly the same is patently absurd. Our city fathers may be a few bricks short of a pyramid, but I trust that even they can tell the difference between "hey, nice to see you again" and "I've been watching you while you sleep", even if you cannot.
When a human being stalks you or spies upon you without your knowledge or consent, that is very much illegal, even if in their twisted mind they believe they are doing you a favor. The same should be true when a website or corporation does the same. When a policeman gives you a neighborly hello (though that doesn't happen much anymore), this is a nice gesture. When the NSA constantly monitors your emails and texts in secret, this is an outrage. Why should non-governmental entities not be held to the same ethical standard?
Also check me out on:
WordPress, Etsy, and Spore.
You have drawn an analogy of your own here, between ad-based web tracking and stalking. I remain unconvinced that this analogy would have merit, though, so the colourful illustrations that follow that build on that premise become word fodder. I find that web-based tracking and stalking to be particularly different primarily because Stalking is an "Active" action, and web-tracking is entirely passive. A stalker takes an active role in acquiring information about somebody; perhaps they rifle through their garbage, or they sit in a tree with a pair of binoculars, or they follow them around. In contrast, online tracking via advertisement and analytic services is passive, so they are certainly different. Note that the grocery-store case is also mostly passive for obvious reasons; this is why I also disagree that my former analogy requires the grocer/cashier to take an active role in finding and collecting information. The premise between them is similar; that is, online tracking tracks, collates, and aggregates whatever data it can by law and uses that to change information about how it is presented. In the same way, grocery stores will track, maintain, and aggregate information about their shoppers; they will also even sell that information- such as personal information provided on a membership card- to interested third parties such as snail-mail spammers. That information is being provided by the person, not unlike the web-based case.
I said they were exactly the same in premise, such that they work via the same concepts. Both are passive collection of information, whereas you are trying to effectively say that web-tracking is a more active collection. I disagree.
I'm unsure whether your passive statements suggesting I lack intelligence are supposed to change my mind, but I've found they tend to have the opposite effect. I've never been convinced by arguments that seem to rest on a axiom of "If you don't agree with me, you must be stupid" .
The issues regarding the NSA is that they were using active tracking, such that systems were compromised and activities could be monitored directly from that system, including offline activity. Typically, Internet marketing/advertisement/targeting/etc, is passive. It very much goes back to the stalker analogy you mentioned- the activities of the NSA are stalking since they are active, but web-based tracking is passive, so the same analogy would be a misrepresentation of what it actually entails.
Looking into it, though- I've just now noticed that the U.S doesn't have any of the same laws regarding privacy as pretty much every other first-world country. the U.K and Canada, for example, both have a variety of privacy laws that control how and what can be collected and by whom. I know when the Personal Information Protection Act of British Columbia was passed I had to provide consent for newsgroups as well as advertising to collect information. I allowed enough such that I was seeing ads for Resharper instead of Tampax, personally. Looking into it I am surprised that the U.S actually doesn't seem to have laws on this, and realistically all I can find is that the Federal Trade Commission has privacy regulations. So that taken in mind, I think it is a good idea to implement legislating the "regulations" and catching up with the rest of the western world. It does appear that there have been about a dozen bills introduced to do so, but none of them passed.
Actually, that none of them passed does raise perhaps more questions, particularly when it comes to congressmen and corporate interests, as looking through the bills that were not passed it seems that corporate concerns were the only thing that prevented it.
I'm afraid you've once again missed the point entirely. The fact that a tracking cookie need not physically change its location to follow you does not change the fact that it remains with you constantly, without your consent and sometimes even without your knowledge, even after you've left the site on which it originated, for an indefinite amount of time until you become aware of its presence and take measures to rid yourself of it. The fact that it doesn't have to lift a finger to scratch notes in a notebook does not change the fact that is recording everything you do in minute detail, what searches you make, what websites you visit, who your email contacts are, what pictures you look at, what videos you watch, etc for the entire time it is there. The amount of effort or lack thereof exerted to do that does not change the fact that it is being done.
CPR and crucifixion work via the same concept. Both manipulate the muscles responsible for breathing from without by the application of external force, but they are hardly the same. Hanging does not work via the same concepts as crucifixion, but the task it is intended to accomplish and indeed does accomplish is the same.
Again, you are missing the point. The issue is not one of "passive" vs "active" but one of omnipresence (or at least, a very heartfelt attempt at omnipresence) and the minute detail of the data collected while omnipresent. If it will help you understand, imagine that the clerk is not following you, but has instead handcuffed himself to you, more than content to be dragged along behind you so long as you remain in his sight, and that instead of taking notes he merely has a photographic memory with 100% total recall.
Oh, no that has nothing to do with whether or not you agree with me. Mere disagreements I can handle no problem. No, what frustrates me is when people continuously fail to grasp extremely basic concepts, which just so happens to be what I was remarking upon (and indeed, what I actually said when making said remarks). As for what your opinions happen to be once the concepts in question are understood.... well, we'll cross that idiom when we come to it.
Also check me out on:
WordPress, Etsy, and Spore.
Although i agree with you that all this tracking is bad, you technically agreed to it when you signed up for the site that tracks you.
You don't want anyone to track you? Don't use websites that use you info..
Not true. Many websites will do it even when you're not a registered member "just in case" you ever decide to sign up. Facebook is probably the worst offender in this regard, since they'll track you even if you never actually visit Facebook, so long as you've been on any page that has any sort of Facebook integration (which, at this point, is pretty much any page), even if you never use or even notice the integration features.
Also check me out on:
WordPress, Etsy, and Spore.