2 ms·

Please explain.

by MatthewPhillips 16y ago

Please explain.

orangecat 16y ago
IP matching, supercookies, browser fingerprints (http://panopticlick.eff.org/ http://panopticlick.eff.org/)...
- earl 16y ago
  Supercookies, at least inside flash, are unlikely to be used following the lawsuit against quantcast and clearspring [1]. Full disclosure: I work for quantcast. This is nothing more than my personal opinion, and should not be taken as company policy. For company policy, feel free to review the settlement [2]. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/zombie-cookies-lawsuit/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/zombie-cookies-laws... [2] http://www.quantcast.com/inside-quantcast/2010/12/reaffirming-our-commitment-to-consumer-choice-and-control/ http://www.quantcast.com/inside-quantcast/2010/12/reaffirmin...
nobody_nowhere 16y ago
Companies who control enough net infrastructure or have visibility into enough sites can do a reasonably good job of tracking you without using cookies. One way is to fingerprint a browser. EFF has a nice demo of this using HTTP headers. If you're operating at the packet level, you don't even need that. So in that sense it's not a matter of avoiding certain sites or managing cookies properly, because the tracking is pervasive. Current ftc discussions seem like they center around cookies, and personally identifiable information (PII), and do nothing to address other forms of tracking. That will favor large corporations and eviscerate startups in the adtech space. The key thing that legitimate players in advertising want to do is understand which ads work well and which don't. Targeting users based on which sites they visit and based on offline demographic and shopping is very trendy right now, but it's not as necessary for keeping ads ROI-positive for advertisers in my opinion. None of it really involves identifying individuals or PII, at least in the sense that people would be creeped out by. Hopefully there'll be a reasonable outcome to this which will allow this kind of legitimate use, since it finances so much of the net now.

Please explain.

orangecat 16y ago

IP matching, supercookies, browser fingerprints (http://panopticlick.eff.org/ http://panopticlick.eff.org/)...

earl 16y ago
Supercookies, at least inside flash, are unlikely to be used following the lawsuit against quantcast and clearspring [1]. Full disclosure: I work for quantcast. This is nothing more than my personal opinion, and should not be taken as company policy. For company policy, feel free to review the settlement [2]. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/zombie-cookies-lawsuit/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/zombie-cookies-laws... [2] http://www.quantcast.com/inside-quantcast/2010/12/reaffirming-our-commitment-to-consumer-choice-and-control/ http://www.quantcast.com/inside-quantcast/2010/12/reaffirmin...

nobody_nowhere 16y ago

Companies who control enough net infrastructure or have visibility into enough sites can do a reasonably good job of tracking you without using cookies. One way is to fingerprint a browser. EFF has a nice demo of this using HTTP headers. If you're operating at the packet level, you don't even need that. So in that sense it's not a matter of avoiding certain sites or managing cookies properly, because the tracking is pervasive. Current ftc discussions seem like they center around cookies, and personally identifiable information (PII), and do nothing to address other forms of tracking. That will favor large corporations and eviscerate startups in the adtech space. The key thing that legitimate players in advertising want to do is understand which ads work well and which don't. Targeting users based on which sites they visit and based on offline demographic and shopping is very trendy right now, but it's not as necessary for keeping ads ROI-positive for advertisers in my opinion. None of it really involves identifying individuals or PII, at least in the sense that people would be creeped out by. Hopefully there'll be a reasonable outcome to this which will allow this kind of legitimate use, since it finances so much of the net now.