firefox, trackers and ghostery

[Patrick Asselman]

On 2013-07-17 13:14, Sajan Parikh wrote:
> On 07/17/2013 04:41 AM, pete smout wrote:
>> True except when you substitute face for IP then with the help of 
>> some software your 'entire online' footprint becomes available to 
>> them. Simply put you bought some bananas at store A, some milk and ice 
>> cream at store B, Store A can then put 2 + 2 together and assume the 
>> you are making banana smoothies when in-fact all you wanted was some 
>> bananas to take for a snack at work tomorrow, some milk for a cup of 
>> coffee, and ice cream for pudding! My point being that incorrect 
>> conclusions can be made from the most innocent of activities!
> Absolutely, but the type of incorrect conclusions that are made in
> advertising are limited to advertisers showing you a banana smoothie.
> Is that really such a giant inconvenience?  If you were trying to
> imply a larger point, I will put this out there.  In the U.S., of the
> string of criminal prosecutions where the IP address was the sole
> piece of evidence linked to the plaintiff, I'm fairly positive not a
> single one was convicted.

The smoothie was just an example of course, you need to extrapolate. 
Imagine a farmer ordering fertilizer and diesel online. Those are two 
ingredients for explosives. So with misinterpretation that would make 
him a suspect of terrorist activities. Imagine he also just bought a gun 
a week ago, and a ticket to New York to visit his cousin who lives 
there. Imagine him sending an email to his cousin stating that they will 
have a "bang of a party" when he arrives. I think he's already half way 
to Guantanamo if all these facts are misinterpreted.

By the way I found your lates blog post interesting to read. The one 
where you state that you are trying to use Google's services less, 
though you don't really know why. It put a grin on my face.

Best regards,
Patrick