PW2 Web Blog

Tracking Users and Tracking Lawsuits

Contributed by Rick DeVan on September 21, 2010 at 7:14 pm ET

Resource: Code That Tracks Users’ Browsing Prompts Lawsuits

Resource: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Some privacy advocates said that despite the companies’ claims, if enough data is collected over time, advertisers can create detailed profiles of users including personally identifiable data like race and age in addition to data about what Web sites a user visits. They also take issue with the fact that Flash cookies can be used to restore HTML cookies that have been deleted from a user’s computer, circumventing a user’s privacy settings.

“The core function of the cookie is to link what you do on Web site A to what you do on Web site B,” said Peter Eckersley, a technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “The Flash cookie makes it harder for people to stop that from happening.”

In general, I feel anything beyond the user’s control is not appropriate, but in reality do most users understand how to take control in the first place?

It will be interesting to see how these play out in the courts.

Share

Filed under Business and Commerce, Consumer, Ethics, Life, Work, and Society, Marketing, Media

Tags used: Web —

Comments and discussion are welcome on the PW2 Web Facebook Page up to four weeks after publication date.