Keep your opt-outs Posted by Sean Harvey and Rajas Moonka, Product Managers Today we’re making available Keep My Opt-Outs, which enables you to opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies. It’s available as an extension for download in Chrome. Why have we developed this feature? Recently, the Federal Trade Commission and others have expressed interest in a “Do Not Track” mechanism that could offer users a simple way to opt out of personalized advertising. There are more than 50 companies that are members that offer opt outs via these programs, including the top 15 largest ad networks in the U.S. However, the industry has faced a recurring technical challenge with these opt-outs and controls. We’ve been working on addressing these issues for awhile. Today we are building on this work, and that of others, by allowing you to permanently opt out of ad tracking from all companies that offer opt-outs through the industry self-regulation programs. More to come
Facebook instant personalization: How to disable it, and why Updated: see below. Facebook's 'instant personalization' feature allows the walls between the social network and the world to be broken through for a seamless experience for all. While many have not been able to access the instant personalisation feature yet, many have found that it is turned on by default so many will be entirely unaware the feature even exists. However, this raises concerns amongst the 500 million and growing population of the social network, with the potential for better targeted adverts and more of your data handed out to other websites. How it works Provided you are logged into Facebook, certain websites like Pandora and Bing can 'personalise' their sites with data provided from your account. Only certain sites can access this, and permissions need to be granted to do this. How to turn it off 1.
The Filter Bubble Personalization algorithms already tell us what movies to watch, news stories to read and tunes to listen to. It was only a matter of time, then, that they’d tell us who to love. Matching algorithms aren’t new to online dating services. EHarmony, Chemistry and OKCupid have long served up compatible mates based on dozens, if not hundreds, of questions singles answer on their sites. But a new dating app, StreetSpark, is venturing out internet-wide to pick up clues on who you’re likely to become enamored with. It’s like “traditional” online personalization but in reverse. StreetSpark touts their service as giving “serendipity a helping hand.” It’s an odd usage of “serendipity,” though, which describes the phenomenon of making desirable discoveries by accident. But it’s more than a semantic quibble.
A Primer on Information Theory and Privacy If we ask whether a fact about a person identifies that person, it turns out that the answer isn't simply yes or no. If all I know about a person is their ZIP code, I don't know who they are. If all I know is their date of birth, I don't know who they are. If all I know is their gender, I don't know who they are. But it turns out that if I know these three things about a person, I could probably deduce their identity! Each of the facts is partially identifying. There is a mathematical quantity which allows us to measure how close a fact comes to revealing somebody's identity uniquely. Because there are around 7 billion humans on the planet, the identity of a random, unknown person contains just under 33 bits of entropy (two to the power of 33 is 8 billion). ΔS = - log2 Pr(X=x) Where ΔS is the reduction in entropy, measured in bits, and Pr(X=x) is simply the probability that the fact would be true of a random person. How much entropy is needed to identify someone?
Are we stuck in filter bubbles? Here are five potential paths out The filter bubble is a name for an anxiety — the worry that our personalized interfaces to the Internet will end up telling us only what we want to hear, hiding everything unpleasant but important. It’s a fabulous topic of debate, because it’s both significant and marvelously ill-defined. But to get beyond arguing, we’re going to need to actually do something. I have five proposals. If you’re not familiar with the filter bubble argument, start with Eli Pariser’s TED talk. Or maybe not. People have been talking about the dangers of personalized algorithmic filters since the dawn of the web — here’s Jaron Lanier in 1995, and Cass Sunstein in 2002 — and we’re still talking about it. 1. When we look at how people interact on the web, what do we actually see? On Amazon, Orgnet showed that most people buy “conservative” or “liberal” books but not both by mapping the “people who read X also read Y” recommendations. But these sorts of studies cannot answer questions of cause and effect. 2. 3.
The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You (9781594203008): Eli Pariser Unfiltered News "Hello Mr. Griffin, Thank you from the bottom of my heart for these news updates and for the huge service you have been doing for humanity. Your work has opened my eyes to so many agendas and continues to educate with every new post…. With sincere gratitude," – Oriana Spratt, Ashland, Oregon "The Unfiltered News is one of my VERY favorite weekly reads I look forward to receiving. Endless thanks for sharing news and interests most people are not aware of or have little time to follow up and research." – Jeanette R. "Thank you for your tireless efforts and easy-flowing news briefs. "Thanks soooo much for all of your hard work in bringing the truth to the people. "I am a person who has been, like most others, running around with my head in the sand until someone sent me a copy of one of your news letters, which opened my eyes. "Thank you, thank you for your excellent news letter. "Kudos to Ed Griffin. "This is just a note to say thank you very much for Unfiltered News. "YES!!! "Thank Mr.
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