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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

#81

Post by inportb »

scythe wrote: post #39
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…

>not all tracking is evil. Tracking isn't evil. Tracking people who specifically do not want to be tracked is evil.

You mean, people who take unfair^ advantage of freemium services?

  ^ according to jscheel's assessment of fair trade

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

#82

Post by inportb »

bandushrew wrote: post #72
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…

that is very cool. The important thing about the system is that it is a matter of personal choice, right? I can choose not to participate, right? because they ask my permission, dont they? I mean, I can choose between not seeing their contact or being tracked - yes?

Absolutely. You can easily choose not to participate.

If, on the other hand, you choose to deny access to your data while continuing to use the Web services in question, you would be at fault (using grandparent's definition of fair trade).

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

#83

Post by inportb »

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…

What happens when you login using both browsers? Now, Hulu.com can attribute both Km UID's to your account. Magic.

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

#85

Post by bandushrew »

inportb wrote: post #82
bandushrew wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is very cool. The important thing about the system is that it is a matter of personal choice, right? I can choose not to participate, right? because they ask my permission, dont they? I mean, I can choose between not seeing their contact or being tracked - yes?

Absolutely. You can easily choose not to participate. If, on the other hand, you choose to deny access to your data while continuing to use the Web services in question, you would be at fault (using grandparent's definition of fair trade).

great!

how can I choose to deny access to my data?

heh heh. the silly article made it sound as if that wasn't an option. trust the journalists to stuff things up.

so how do I do it?

Edit: I dont use Firefox, so AdBlock is out of the question, and I have no idea what websites do this. Is there a list available somewhere? How can I discover whether or not a website does this without visiting them in the first place?

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

#86

Post by maukdaddy »

Alex3917 wrote: post #20
maukdaddy wrote: post #9

There is nothing more evil in modern business than marketers. Between real life experience and MBA classes I have come to despise most everything involved in modern marketing, especially in the technology space.

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 organic products or P&G selling highly processed foods that are destroying the environment?

The marketer is going to take the P&G job and then spend their time and brainpower convincing people to buy even more processed crap.

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

#87

Post by zedshaw »

teej wrote: post #29
maukdaddy wrote: post #9

There is nothing more evil in modern business than marketers. Between real life experience and MBA classes I have come to despise most everything involved in modern marketing, especially in the technology space.

Give me a break. This isn't evil marketers hiding in their underground lair. This is web developers, designers, and product managers gaining insight about their users. They don't package this information and sell it wholesale to advertisers. They use it to make the product better . You are taking this -way- too seriously. The ability to have perfect information on how users interact with your product is one the earth…

Bullshit. If it was used to improve a product, they wouldn't use a tracking method that tracks me between sites. They can track what I do on their site, but if I'm going from goat-sucking-maggot.com to hulu.com, then Hulu has no business knowing that and knowing that doesn't improve their damn product.

This is entirely just an attempt to get competitive analysis about their competitors at the expense of user privacy.

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

#89

Post by tomjen3 »

k33n wrote: post #55

I've worked with the KM folks. Great people, genuinely kind, and they want to make a great product. I think it's disgusting to single out a startup like this, especially right as they are gaining traction with some big-name clients. There is value in what they are doing, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. They are tracking user behavior completely anonymously.

If there is nothing wrong with what they are doing, why do they force it on me?

Actually, given what you said in that post, why do you force it on me?

Don't bother deny it -- you wouldn't know if they are getting traction if you weren't working with them.

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

#90

Post by meatsock »

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…

"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."

that's funny, most of the web content i use most heavily was 'made' and 'distributed' without any input from the marketers / advertisers / trackers whom you are defending. not all tracking is evil, but the evil tracking offsets the good stuff by a wide margin. not all gun owners are evil but if you're running a company that uses that defense to justify business practices that require an invisible gun owner to be in my living room, i'm not going to be caring about how much my living room experience has improved.

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