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This is bizarre. I don't live in the US and have questions. a) how do they acquire users' web history? Do they purchase it from ISP? b) how do they know what

This is bizarre. I don't live in the US and have questions. a) how do they acquire users' web history? Do they purchase it from ISP? b) how do they know what ISP to ask? c) how does the ISP know my web history? Last time I checked, almost all websites I visit use https, so the only thing they can see is domain, not /pathname/ d) how does it feel to poke your nose where it doesn't belong?

p410n3 5y ago
a) Yes. Amongst others, many ISPs sell data. I picked comcast as a random example, here in Germany ISPs do that too: "We may also share personal information that does not identify you with third parties for their own marketing and advertising purposes, which you can opt out of. This mainly occurs when you interact with our websites and mobile applications that contain third-party cookies or other advertising trackers. To learn more about this, please read our Cookies Notice." Coupled with: https://www.vice.com/en/article/gygx7y/your-anonymous-browsing-data-isnt-actually-anonymous https://www.vice.com/en/article/gygx7y/your-anonymous-browsi... b) Afaik there's data brokers that know this and collect data from many different kinds of sources (isps being only one of them) those then sell to people like private investigators and private intelligence companies. Sadly I don't have a source ready, I learned this on a podcast and completely forgot which one. But the vice article above goes into that direction too. c) That's correct, but that's also already valuable on it's own. I assume the /pathnames/ can come from third party tracking / ad companies, but dns data alone is also valuable. It's all in the patters of the (meta)data d) Very likely exciting to many. Voyeurism and the "forbidden apple" aren't exactly new concepts
p410n3 5y ago
Additionally, take a look at the official Californian data Broker registry: https://oag.ca.gov/data-brokers https://oag.ca.gov/data-brokers

p410n3 5y ago

a) Yes. Amongst others, many ISPs sell data. I picked comcast as a random example, here in Germany ISPs do that too: "We may also share personal information that does not identify you with third parties for their own marketing and advertising purposes, which you can opt out of. This mainly occurs when you interact with our websites and mobile applications that contain third-party cookies or other advertising trackers. To learn more about this, please read our Cookies Notice." Coupled with: https://www.vice.com/en/article/gygx7y/your-anonymous-browsing-data-isnt-actually-anonymous https://www.vice.com/en/article/gygx7y/your-anonymous-browsi... b) Afaik there's data brokers that know this and collect data from many different kinds of sources (isps being only one of them) those then sell to people like private investigators and private intelligence companies. Sadly I don't have a source ready, I learned this on a podcast and completely forgot which one. But the vice article above goes into that direction too. c) That's correct, but that's also already valuable on it's own. I assume the /pathnames/ can come from third party tracking / ad companies, but dns data alone is also valuable. It's all in the patters of the (meta)data d) Very likely exciting to many. Voyeurism and the "forbidden apple" aren't exactly new concepts

p410n3 5y ago

Additionally, take a look at the official Californian data Broker registry: https://oag.ca.gov/data-brokers https://oag.ca.gov/data-brokers