Tweet
Google, Microsoft Threaten End to Cookie Tracking - WSJ.com
Google, Microsoft and Facebook have developed systems that track you across multiple webpages and even across multiple platforms.
For example, if you have used your browser to login to Facebook, Facebook loads you with a Facebook cookie. Then if you go to some other site that advertises on Facebook, such as say a site that sells shoes, that site recognizes you as a Facebook user, and when you return to Facebook, voila you will notice an ad for shoes from that shoe seller on your Facebook, even if you have never registered for anything on that shoe site and all you ever did was browse on it once.
(Note: Facebook does let you opt out of cookie based ads.)
This sort of tracking involves traditional cookies, but used across different, seemingly unlinked websites.
Microsoft wants to go a step further. They have announced that users of their Apps will be assigned a "Unique ID" that will stick with them as they use all MSFT apps. Apple too has offered advertisers the ability to track users via a Unique ID across smartphones and tablets.
Google has announced the most Big Brother tracking of all - a unique identifier that tracks users across all of its products - Gmail, the Chrome browser and Android phones.
(Already I have noticed that when one logs into a Google product such as Google Voice, Google announces that the login works for ALL Google products - something I DON'T want because I don't wish to login to, say, my Google Checkout inadvertently while logged into a given IP address.)
Fortunately the Short List provides you with a simple method to avoid all this sort of tracking - which, for now, is not utilized by Ebay / PayPal anyway, but is a sort of tracking we need to be aware of preventatively.
Google, Microsoft and Facebook have developed systems that track you across multiple webpages and even across multiple platforms.
For example, if you have used your browser to login to Facebook, Facebook loads you with a Facebook cookie. Then if you go to some other site that advertises on Facebook, such as say a site that sells shoes, that site recognizes you as a Facebook user, and when you return to Facebook, voila you will notice an ad for shoes from that shoe seller on your Facebook, even if you have never registered for anything on that shoe site and all you ever did was browse on it once.
(Note: Facebook does let you opt out of cookie based ads.)
This sort of tracking involves traditional cookies, but used across different, seemingly unlinked websites.
Microsoft wants to go a step further. They have announced that users of their Apps will be assigned a "Unique ID" that will stick with them as they use all MSFT apps. Apple too has offered advertisers the ability to track users via a Unique ID across smartphones and tablets.
Google has announced the most Big Brother tracking of all - a unique identifier that tracks users across all of its products - Gmail, the Chrome browser and Android phones.
(Already I have noticed that when one logs into a Google product such as Google Voice, Google announces that the login works for ALL Google products - something I DON'T want because I don't wish to login to, say, my Google Checkout inadvertently while logged into a given IP address.)
Fortunately the Short List provides you with a simple method to avoid all this sort of tracking - which, for now, is not utilized by Ebay / PayPal anyway, but is a sort of tracking we need to be aware of preventatively.
Comment