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Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

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Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#101

Post by mooism2 »

fungi wrote: post #56
sp332 wrote: post #22

KISSmetrics has a post explaining how the tracking works. http://www.kissmetrics.com/how-it-works They claim that simply using AdBlock is enough to defeat the tracking. They also claim "KISSmetrics has never, and will never, share anonymous customer activity of what people did on customer A’s site with customer B."

hazza for adblock, as much as i like to see the legislature and courts support privacy this is fundamentally a technological problem.

I disagree. This is a Whack-A-Mole game, and that means a societal solution is required.

Compare with spam. Technological solutions have reduced the problem, but to virtually eliminate it requires global law enforcement.

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#102

Post by mooism2 »

thezilch wrote: post #52

I'm not sure these researchers understand how private-browsing functions. The session in a private-browsing window is only private from the non-private sessions and only private from future private-sessions when all private sessions -- private-browsing windows -- are destroyed. http://imgur.com/a/LjjYf Here I have a non-private session, where I have request i.js (a second time), invoking an If-None-Match check with m…

Does it work that way in other browsers too?

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#103

Post by jaredmck »

maukdaddy wrote: post #86
Alex3917 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for that virtually every single one of the biggest problems we face is a marketing problem, rather than an issue where we don't have the science or technology: global warming, education reform, prison reform, the national debt, healthcare, literacy, food production, biodiversity, etc. Marketing is probably the single most important career there is right now, and if there's any hope of humanity making it throug…

But here's the problem - on a whole, no one is paying marketers to solve these problems. Marketers make their money by shilling for products that are the opposite of the issues you listed above. For example, a newly minted MBA in Marketing needs to pay back school loans. Who has the money to pay them? Who has the job that will bring the most prestige and future earnings? The local farm selling grass-fed beef and orga…

Marketer is not a well-defined class. People who market may not identify as such- many don't even know they market. Marketing is just a word, a neat little box, it contains exactly and only what you want. While you have a lot of bile for marketers behind closed big corporate doors (and I agree they deserve much of this derision) the fact of the matter is, you always have a choice: stop buying their shit. It may take a lot of work to cut through all these layers of bullshit, sure, but ask yourself what it is about marketing which really makes you mad? Marketing, ads, or that you can't yet see through/around/past it enough to stop falling for exactly the traps marketers set?

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#104

Post by slowpoke »

jscheel wrote: post #38

Jeez guys, not all tracking is evil. You know all that awesome content that exists on the web? Well the people that make and distribute that content need information to make your experience better. Let's say you start a new site. Let's use 8tracks for example: they provide a two-tiered service, one free and premium. The free service exists to drive you to a paid account, but you still derive value from it, nonetheles…

  Well the people that make and distribute that content need information to make your experience better.
If somebody wants my feedback, they can ask for it, and if I have the time and like/value their service, I will gladly comply. Simply 'taking' my feedback doesn't sit well with me.

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#105

Post by newman314 »

aerique wrote: post #99
newman314 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, this does not help with mobile devices which do not have the same capability. Well, I guess you can always maintain a hosts file but that's the only way I can think of.

There's Firewall iP for jailbroken iPhones. Also one can install other browsers than Safari from the Appstore and, for example, iCab Mobile has the ability to use filters (and comes with some).

Mobile devices != iPhone+Android. I find this trend pretty disturbing.

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#106

Post by robtoo »

bhrgunatha wrote: post #26

> So if a user came to Hulu.com from an ad on Facebook, and then later, using a different browser on the same computer , visited Hulu.com from Google, and then at some point signed up for the premium service, KISSmetrics would be able to tell Hulu all about that user’s path to purchase (without knowing who that person was). It seems their method relies on using cached javascript files to identify a user. How then are…

How then are they able to track the same user using a different browser?

Flash cookies. Presumably Silverlight has an equivalent.

(And I even heard once that Windows Media Player shares cookies with IE regardless of the browser that it is embedded in.)

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#107

Post by robtoo »

rjbond3rd wrote: post #51
Groxx wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the picture I get too, but I don't see how clearing the cache doesn't, you know, clear the cache . It would seem to imply that if the Etag is still around, it's not really cleared - maybe the data is gone, but the knowledge that the data existed isn't. And it persists through privacy-mode. Which means I/we am/are either misunderstanding something, or the people who designed privacy and cache-clearing tools had…

There are many other techniques employed. As soon as one of the techniques works, it re-populates the others. (Cache clearing doesn't affect Flash cookies [LSO's]).

Cache clearing doesn't affect Flash cookies [LSO's]

This is coming soon to a Chrome near you: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/04/providing-transparency-and-...

Presumably other browsers will follow.

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#108

Post by thezilch »

mooism2 wrote: post #102
thezilch wrote: post #52

I'm not sure these researchers understand how private-browsing functions. The session in a private-browsing window is only private from the non-private sessions and only private from future private-sessions when all private sessions -- private-browsing windows -- are destroyed. http://imgur.com/a/LjjYf Here I have a non-private session, where I have request i.js (a second time), invoking an If-None-Match check with m…

Does it work that way in other browsers too?

FF5 and IE9 function similar. Non-private and private sessions will not cooperate on the same cache, cookies, ETags, etc. Closing a private session will destroy all local cache, cookies, ETags, etc and is not reinstated when starting future private sessions.

Re: Researchers Expose Cunning Online Tracking Service That Can’t Be Dodged

#109

Post by watchandwait »

bandushrew wrote: post #70
sp332 wrote: post #22

KISSmetrics has a post explaining how the tracking works. http://www.kissmetrics.com/how-it-works They claim that simply using AdBlock is enough to defeat the tracking. They also claim "KISSmetrics has never, and will never, share anonymous customer activity of what people did on customer A’s site with customer B."

" They also claim "KISSmetrics has never, and will never, share anonymous customer activity of what people did on customer A’s site with customer B."" but if they change their mind, there is no way I can stop them - right?

And there is nothing from stopping other companies from using the same techniques to sell individual browsing data.
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