What They Know About You A few online marketers will show you what they know about you – or think they know. Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. , Yahoo Inc. and others have created "preference managers" that let you see, and change, the interests they've assigned to you based on your browsing behavior. The companies acted partly in response to concerns about the privacy of the people they're tracking. Some, but not all, of the preference managers let you halt tracking by that company. The companies gather this information by tracking your Web-surfing activity through small computer files or software programs installed on your computer by the websites you visit. Some of their guesses can be wrong.
Google Tracked iPhones, Bypassing Apple Browser Privacy Settings TRAFFIQ — Premium Advertising Marketplace La vie privée en contexte ou la vertu de la réciprocité Helen Nissenbaum est chercheuse à l’université de New York. Elle intervenait récemment dans un séminaire du programme des Technologies de libération de l’université de Stanford (blog, @Liberationtech) dans une petite salle à moitié vide, raconte Alexis Madrigal pour The Atlantic. Pourtant, Helen Nissenbaum n’est pas n’importe qui. Elle est l’auteur de La vie privée en contexte ainsi que d’autres articles sur le sujet comme “Une approche contextuelle à la vie privée en ligne (.pdf)“. Mais surtout, elle a joué un rôle essentiel dans la récente déclaration des droits pour protéger la vie privée des consommateurs en ligne récemment publiée par la Maison Blanche. Compte tenu de l’influence intellectuelle dont elle dispose, il est important de comprendre comment ce qu’elle dit sur la vie privée est différent de ce que disent d’autres théoriciens, estime avec raison Alexis Madrigal. Vous vous souvenez des polémiques liées au lancement de Google Street View en Europe. Hubert Guillaud
The Data Bubble The tide turned today. Mark it: 31 July 2010. That’s when The Wall Street Journal published The Web’s Gold Mine: Your Secrets, subtitled A Journal investigation finds that one of the fastest-growing businesses on the Internet is the business of spying on consumers. First in a series. It has ten links to other sections of today’s report. It’s pretty freaking amazing — and amazingly freaky, when you dig down to the business assumptions behind it. Here’s the gist: The Journal conducted a comprehensive study that assesses and analyzes the broad array of cookies and other surveillance technology that companies are deploying on Internet users. It gets worse: In between the Internet user and the advertiser, the Journal identified more than 100 middlemen—tracking companies, data brokers and advertising networks—competing to meet the growing demand for data on individual behavior and interests.The data on Ms. Two things are going to happen here. Improving a pain in the ass doesn’t make it a kiss.
What They Know About You - Personal Information Tracked Online Cookie Madness! I just don’t understand Julia Angwin’s scare story about cookies and ad targeting in the Wall Street Journal. That is, I don’t understand how the Journal could be so breathlessly naive, unsophisticated, and anachronistic about the basics of the modern media business. It is the Reefer Madness of the digital age: Oh my God, Mabel, they’re watching us! If I were a conspiracy theorist — and I’m not, because I’ve found the world is rarely organized enough to conspire (and I found this to be especially true of News Corp. when I worked there, at TV Guide) — I’d imagine that the Journal ginned up this alleged exposé as a way to attack everyone else’s advertising business just as its parent company skulks behind its pay wall and surrenders its own ad business. The story uses the ominous passive voice of newspaper scare stories: “…a Wall Street Journal investigation has found…” As if this knowledge were hiding. It’s a fine thing that the Journal also tells readers how to “avoid prying eyes.”
Glossary - Online Privacy, Web Tracking & Information Security eXelate Raises $15 Million For Behavioral Targeting Data Marketplace eXelate, a New York-based provider of data management tools for online publishers and operator of an open marketplace for audience targeting data, has raised $15 million in Series B funding in a round led by Silicon Valley’s Menlo Ventures with participation of Israeli VC firm Carmel Ventures. The latter led the company’s initial $4 million financing round back in October 2007. Menlo Ventures partner Mark Siegel will join Carmel’s Shlomo Dovrat on eXelate’s board, which was recently expanded to include New York Times Company SVP Digital Operations Martin Nisenholtz and IPG’s Mediabrands Ventures CEO Matt Freeman. Since eXelate’s U.S. launch of the eXelate eXchange in May 2008, the company has expanded both its footprint of accessible audience data (to 150 million U.S. unique visitors presently) as well as its suite of solutions to enable efficient interactions between buyers and sellers of data.
www.amacad.org/publications/daedalus/11_fall_nissenbaum.pdf What They Know Is Interesting—But What Are You Going to Do About It? The Wall Street Journal has stirred up a discussion of online privacy with its “What They Know” series of reports. These reports reveal again the existence and some workings of the information economy behind the Internet and World Wide Web. (All that content didn’t put itself there, y’know!) The discussion centers around “tracking” of web users, particularly through the use of “cookies.” Often cookies have distinct strings of characters in them, so the site can recognize you. Advertising networks use cookies to gather information about web surfers. A network that has ads on a lot of sites will recognize a browser (and by inference the person using it) when it goes to different web sites, enabling the ad network to get a sense of that person’s interests. This is important to note: Most web sites and ad networks do not “sell” information about their users. Some people don’t like this tracking. Only one thing is certain here: Nobody knows how this is supposed to come out. Do so.
Search engines remain popular—and users are more satisfied than ever with the quality of search results—but many are anxious about the collection of personal information by search engines and other websites. Search engines remain popular—and users are more satisfied than ever with the quality of search results—but many are anxious about the collection of personal information by search engines and other websites. Most search users disapprove of personal information being collected for search results or for targeted advertising The Pew Internet & American Life survey in February 2012 included several questions probing how respondents feel about search engines and other websites collecting information about them and using it to either shape their search results or target advertising to them. Clear majorities of internet and search users disapprove of these practices in all the contexts we probed. Specifically, the survey posed the following choices to search engine users: All internet users were posed the following choice regarding targeted advertising: Overall views of search engine performance are very positive Overall, search users are confident in their abilities About the survey
Mixpanel Brings Real-Time Analytics to Android Apps Web analytics firm Mixpanel has just launched real-time mobile analytics for the the Android platform. Mixpanel Android analytics lets Android developers track events, do A/B testing and segment user interactions across their apps in real time. Mixpanel's goal is to offer app developers more robust and granular data as opposed to the high-level-only statistics that many mobile analytics packages offer.Android analytics support comes two weeks after Mixpanel launched its iPhone analytics library, and the Android offering integrates with applications in much the same way. Since its launch, the iPhone analytics library has received hundreds of sign-ups and is getting generally positive reviews. I spoke with Mixpanel's Jeremy Richardson about how the company's approach to mobile analytics is different from its competitors' and what benefits Mixpanel can offer developers. An Actions-Based Approach to Analytics This can translate over to the mobile side too. Single Dashboard Overview Pricing
Study on monetising privacy. An economic model for pricing personal information Do some individuals value their privacy enough to pay a mark-up to an online service provider who protects their information better? How is this related to personalisation of services? This study analyses the monetisation of privacy.