firefox, trackers and ghostery

[Patrick Asselman]

On 2013-07-16 02:41, Sajan Parikh wrote:
> As a web developer, I have a slightly different view on things. While
> I still block third party analytics trackers and scripts, and think
> most people in the know should, the level of outrage demonstrated by
> people after the PRISM revelations is a bit unreasonable and they are
> taking things a little too far in terms of perception.
>
>  If I own a website, let's say a news website (I've worked with and
> on many), and I'm posting articles...It's not entirely unreasonable
> for me to want to know my audience a bit better. I want to know which
> of my articles more people are reading, what pages they are visiting,
> what sort of things they are commenting on, etc, etc. All of this is
> not unreasonable, it's data I would then use to produce better 
> content
> for the people visiting my site.

It's not unreasonable to ask your users these things, but it is very 
unreasonable to simply go ahead and investigate all you can about them 
without their consent. Compare it to sending a private investigator 
after someone who just visited your grocery store.

>  Now, how do I collect that data? I could spend thousands of dollars
> and build my own software to collect and analyze that data for me. 
> Or,
> like most, I could use a third party service and their existing
> software to collect that data about my visitors.

You could also set up a little inquiry on some (free) inquiry site and 
ask your customers kindly to participate in this inquiry so that you 
will be able to help them better in the future.

>  That's all it is. Let me broaden this, if you're a business owner.
> Before you spend a couple thousand dollars on a new marketing
> campaign, wouldn't you want to know where your current customers are
> coming from? The idea of that websites collect information is not 
> new,
> nor unreasonable.

It's not new and it started out as not being unreasonable, but it has 
grown way out of hand, to the extent that if the big guys go and puzzle 
all the bits of gathered information together they can create a file on 
you that contains way more than you want them to know. There is a story 
on the 'net about a family who got targeted with very specific 
advertisements for pregnant people, based on their online behaviour. 
They got upset about it and thought it was a mistake. It then turned out 
the woman *was* pregnant, but the marketing people knew about it sooner 
than the family. Is that where we want to go? I don't think so.

>  The internet is a public place. If you want to be private, create
> your own little sandbox and stay in there.

Which is exactly what people are doing by using these plugins :)

>  For example, our company doesn't want our emails to be snooped on.
> So we run our own mail server and encrypt our emails. I don't
> understand people who complain about privacy, then logon to GMail or
> Hotmail and are willing to let the likes of Google and Microsoft
> handle all of their email...while at the same time wanting to block
> tracking cookies.

True, you use a free service and agree to the terms and conditions of 
that service. But you do want to know exactly what you are getting into, 
and you want to have a choice. After PRISM people are just not sure 
anymore how all that information is used. They thought it was used in a 
trustworthy way, it turned out to go way beyond their expectations. It's 
not strange that people are now weary of all online information storage.

>  You can't expect to go to a restaurant with a mask on. If you
> frequent any establishment or a website, that person is going to know
> a little about you. That's just how it is.
>
>  If you want to be completely private, don't use the internet or free
> services on the internet. There's a reason why businesses like ours
> run our own mail servers, own VPNs, and DNS, etc, etc.
>
>  I understand not everyone can do that, but you don't get to walk
> into the building of someone doing it for you with a mask on to
> prevent them from seeing your face.

Yes you do, if you want. Some religions prescribe women to wear a 
niqab. These woman can walk into buildings just fine.

>  /rant
>
>  Sorry for the rant. I might take some heat for this, but I will say
> that I use the Abine Firefox plugin to prevent these cookies. 
> However,
> this isn't anything unreasonable to start putting your tinfoil hat 
> on.
>
>  If someone wants to be angry about PRISM, the anger should be
> directed toward the US Defense Department, who is the one SECRETLY
> taking and collecting all this information from you.

It is the first one to leak that they are doing it, but there may be 
more. The user just doesn't know.
New and bigger data centers are being opened all the time, but there 
does not seem to be a good check as to what is stored for how long and 
whether it is within legal limits.

>  You visiting CNN.com is not secretly taking anything from you,
> you're walking onto their site...of course they are going to have
> security camera footage of you.

Having the footage is fine, but it would be nice if the footage was 
also destroyed after the legal storage time has expired. Or that a court 
order is needed to look into the footage. Society needs to have 
assurance that these things are happening according to the law, and that 
there is not some secret agreement made with a secret 'judge' in a back 
room that it is okay from now till the end of time to look into all 
information if there is some suspicion (there always is *some* 
suspicion), and that the people storing the footage are not allowed to 
talk to anyone about the fact that these things are happening.

I'm very glad that mr. Snowden gave up his lazy life to show how wrong 
things are already. Now we must have this discussion on how far all this 
information gathering, storing, and analysing is allowed to go.

>  Same as when you walk into a gas station, that record is kept by
> them for a certain amount of time too. However, you know that so it's
> okay. Same thing here, you know CNN.com is doing this, and if you
> don't like it don't use CNN.com.

That is too easy. Basically you are saying that companies are allowed 
to make any demands that they seem fit in their contract with the users. 
I beg to differ. I just want to buy a newspaper and read the news, not 
get a private eye chasing me around for a week after buying the paper. 
The government should make sure that I can just buy the paper. 
Unfortunately they seem to have decided to join the companies into 
stalking their citizens. That is why people are now taking all the 
actions they can by themselves.

>  It's the US Defense Department that's the only one doing this 
> secretly.
>
>  / I'm not a grumpy person, I promise. I just think people are
> getting overhyped on the wrong stuff.
>
> Sajan Parikh
>  _Owner, Noppix LLC_
>

Maybe they are overhyped, but you can't blame them, in my opinion. 
Their trust has been broken in a pretty bad way.

Best regards,
Patrick