4 ms·

I feel like all these articles follow a pattern: they take a common, well known aspect of technology (in this case, analytics trackers), search for any cases wh

I feel like all these articles follow a pattern: they take a common, well known aspect of technology (in this case, analytics trackers), search for any cases where a major tech company is involved, and come up with the most clickbaity headline possible ("Google and Facebook Are Quietly Tracking You on Sex Websites", when it's actually the website owners adding this tracking code in the first place, explicitly for the purpose of understanding user behaviour.) These headlines are then shared and reshared by nontechnical users, prompting outrage when there isn't a good reason for it.

Nextgrid 7y ago
To be fair, it’s not like Google/Facebook are a neutral party and only collect data to give it to the site owner. They are also complicit because they keep this data for their own purposes.
- disgruntledphd2 7y ago
  From the article, I'm a little more worried about Oracle, who refused to comment on the story. That being said, this isn't really news (to us, at least), but it's good that newspapers keep banging this drum, as I doubt most other people have thought about all the tracking that happens everytime they visit a new site.
sureaboutthis 7y ago
Oh leave these people alone. It gives them something to talk about and keeps them off the streets.
waveymaus 7y ago
I appreciate trackers are "well-known", but only to a specific class of technical individuals. "Nontechnical users" is basically everyone. They have a right to be outraged, especially when a technology is understood asymmetrically well by the class of individuals who exploit this asymmetry to their advantage. Both the individuals visiting these sites, and possibly even the people making the decision to implement tracking don't know their browsing data is being used for anything other than analytics by the website provider, (if at all by the user, who likely feels safe behind a private browser).
letstrynvm 7y ago
> prompting outrage when there isn't a good reason for it. Can you expand on why there's 'no good reason for it'? The equivalent is my peering in your window to see and note down what you rub one out to... every time. And you don't know what I do with that information or where it will leak to. That sounds perfectly fine to you, does it?
- aviraldg 7y ago
  No, the equivalent is you walking into a store to buy DVDs, and the store manager keeping a record of what sells well, and what you show interest in, etc. to drive decisions about what to stock next.
  - Yizahi 7y ago
    No, the equivalent is you walking into a store to buy DVDs, and the store manager of a nearby store keeping a record of what sells well, and what you show interest in, etc. to drive decisions about what to stock next.
  - martingoodson 7y ago
    ... and then cross-referencing your purchase with everything else you ever purchased. And also every article you ever read. And then selling that information to others.
    - dsr_ 7y ago
      ... and claiming it's not a privacy violation because they don't let the others search for martingoodson, they just offer selection criteria including your age, gender, geographical location, inferred income, inferred religion, inferred skin color, and of course interests.
    - RandomInteger4 7y ago
      Can you show me an example of where and how Google or Facebook "sells your information?" i.e. allows others to view that information?
  - 7y ago
mirimir 7y ago
> explicitly for the purpose of understanding user behaviour. Just to be clear, for porn sites that means who likes what sorts of porn.
bregma 7y ago
> Google and Facebook Are Quietly Tracking You on Sex Websites I kinda prefer it when they make a lot of noise.
mikeash 7y ago
It’s actually the website owners and Googbook tracking you. The headline may be incomplete but it’s not inaccurate. And “porn site operators track how you use their sites” is pretty mundane. Pretty much everyone knows that sites can track your usage. It’s surprising that Googbook is also being given all the data on the porn you watch.
tlibert 7y ago
Second-author here, I have a few rebuttals to these points. First, there is also a wider pattern in the US when it comes to privacy/computer legislation. We tend to have sectoral-focused laws which are often a response to media events, real and fictional. For example, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was a response to the movie War Games. Video Privacy Protection Act was in response to a supreme court nominee's video rental history being leaked to the press. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was partially spurned by concerted reporting (sometimes sensational) on risks to children online. So the pattern you are seeing is part of a larger system which often does produce real change, it is just a slow process. The press is called the "fourth estate" because they play an important part in the democratic process, which is what you are observing here. Second, it is the very ubiquity of the systems these companies deploy which makes it possible to choose a given context (health, sex, etc) and find a privacy-violating technology. I'd love it if when I did these scans I turned up nothing, but the same set of bad actors are always to be found. Likewise, the definition of "well-known" on hacker news is far, far, far different from what a normal Internet user has any clue of. We have 20+ years of research showing people fundamentally don't understand this stuff, and just because you don't have a CS degree doesn't mean you don't have privacy rights. Last, there is very good reason for outrage for many people. There are many places in the world you can be killed for being LGBTQ. Likewise, there are many state intelligence agencies that piggy-back on online tracking (see NSA/Doubleclick cookie), and some governments actively go after LGBTQ people. Even without state intel there is a long history of sexual data being leaked online. People killed themselves as a direct result of the Ashely Madison leak, and if any of these tracking companies porn sites - many of which do not have the security team of a FAANG - get hacked, people who are already marginalized by their societies may be at extreme risk.
- hkai 7y ago
  Even if the Google Analytics is breached and the data is published online, you can't be tracked back to the things that you watched online.

Nextgrid 7y ago

To be fair, it’s not like Google/Facebook are a neutral party and only collect data to give it to the site owner. They are also complicit because they keep this data for their own purposes.

disgruntledphd2 7y ago
From the article, I'm a little more worried about Oracle, who refused to comment on the story. That being said, this isn't really news (to us, at least), but it's good that newspapers keep banging this drum, as I doubt most other people have thought about all the tracking that happens everytime they visit a new site.

sureaboutthis 7y ago

Oh leave these people alone. It gives them something to talk about and keeps them off the streets.

waveymaus 7y ago

I appreciate trackers are "well-known", but only to a specific class of technical individuals. "Nontechnical users" is basically everyone. They have a right to be outraged, especially when a technology is understood asymmetrically well by the class of individuals who exploit this asymmetry to their advantage. Both the individuals visiting these sites, and possibly even the people making the decision to implement tracking don't know their browsing data is being used for anything other than analytics by the website provider, (if at all by the user, who likely feels safe behind a private browser).

letstrynvm 7y ago

> prompting outrage when there isn't a good reason for it. Can you expand on why there's 'no good reason for it'? The equivalent is my peering in your window to see and note down what you rub one out to... every time. And you don't know what I do with that information or where it will leak to. That sounds perfectly fine to you, does it?

aviraldg 7y ago
No, the equivalent is you walking into a store to buy DVDs, and the store manager keeping a record of what sells well, and what you show interest in, etc. to drive decisions about what to stock next.
- Yizahi 7y ago
  No, the equivalent is you walking into a store to buy DVDs, and the store manager of a nearby store keeping a record of what sells well, and what you show interest in, etc. to drive decisions about what to stock next.
- martingoodson 7y ago
  ... and then cross-referencing your purchase with everything else you ever purchased. And also every article you ever read. And then selling that information to others.
  - dsr_ 7y ago
    ... and claiming it's not a privacy violation because they don't let the others search for martingoodson, they just offer selection criteria including your age, gender, geographical location, inferred income, inferred religion, inferred skin color, and of course interests.
  - RandomInteger4 7y ago
    Can you show me an example of where and how Google or Facebook "sells your information?" i.e. allows others to view that information?
- 7y ago

mirimir 7y ago

> explicitly for the purpose of understanding user behaviour. Just to be clear, for porn sites that means who likes what sorts of porn.

bregma 7y ago

> Google and Facebook Are Quietly Tracking You on Sex Websites I kinda prefer it when they make a lot of noise.

mikeash 7y ago

It’s actually the website owners and Googbook tracking you. The headline may be incomplete but it’s not inaccurate. And “porn site operators track how you use their sites” is pretty mundane. Pretty much everyone knows that sites can track your usage. It’s surprising that Googbook is also being given all the data on the porn you watch.

tlibert 7y ago

Second-author here, I have a few rebuttals to these points. First, there is also a wider pattern in the US when it comes to privacy/computer legislation. We tend to have sectoral-focused laws which are often a response to media events, real and fictional. For example, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was a response to the movie War Games. Video Privacy Protection Act was in response to a supreme court nominee's video rental history being leaked to the press. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was partially spurned by concerted reporting (sometimes sensational) on risks to children online. So the pattern you are seeing is part of a larger system which often does produce real change, it is just a slow process. The press is called the "fourth estate" because they play an important part in the democratic process, which is what you are observing here. Second, it is the very ubiquity of the systems these companies deploy which makes it possible to choose a given context (health, sex, etc) and find a privacy-violating technology. I'd love it if when I did these scans I turned up nothing, but the same set of bad actors are always to be found. Likewise, the definition of "well-known" on hacker news is far, far, far different from what a normal Internet user has any clue of. We have 20+ years of research showing people fundamentally don't understand this stuff, and just because you don't have a CS degree doesn't mean you don't have privacy rights. Last, there is very good reason for outrage for many people. There are many places in the world you can be killed for being LGBTQ. Likewise, there are many state intelligence agencies that piggy-back on online tracking (see NSA/Doubleclick cookie), and some governments actively go after LGBTQ people. Even without state intel there is a long history of sexual data being leaked online. People killed themselves as a direct result of the Ashely Madison leak, and if any of these tracking companies porn sites - many of which do not have the security team of a FAANG - get hacked, people who are already marginalized by their societies may be at extreme risk.

hkai 7y ago
Even if the Google Analytics is breached and the data is published online, you can't be tracked back to the things that you watched online.