MOOK: Who's watching you on the Web?
Issue date: 4/14/08 Section: Opinion
Do you ever watch old spy movies where sleuths in suits sneak around taking pictures with their shoes and wonder what became of the spy of today? Oh, he's still there in North Korea somewhere pretending to work in shipping, but he's only one lens in the scope of modern espionage. What is more common is the guy just down the street, an agent of the office park cul-de-sac. He's watching you now, tracking, logging and analyzing your every move. You've seen him and you know full well what he does. He just looks different in coffee-stained khakis sitting behind a computer monitor.
I'm talking about Internet Service Providers - in my case, good ol' RCN, which controls my connection to the World Wide Web and thus all the personal data that's stored on it. Your websites? Cached. Your search engine history? Saved as history. Your downloads? Tagged and bagged. It's all there, from the very first Internet link to what you just now clicked, saved as encoded cookies sitting there as treats for whomever can reach the jar. The question is: Who's allowed in?
It might be speculation, but with enough financial incentive, it's very likely that ISPs will get in on the act and start selling our Internet records to advertising companies producing specialized content. It's probably already happening. I bet some firm, pushing Pepsi or porn or petroleum, is designing ads based off my entire RCN history.
Google already does this with their sidebar links prompted by key words in emails, news preferences and search engines. That's what we sign up for with a Google account, and it's docile enough. But take a look at Facebook. Last year, the website launched Beacon, a program to track your online purchases from select partner sites and broadcast them throughout your network - without your consent. After a huge backlash, Facebook removed the feature, yet founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed the technology will be refined and one day accepted. Facebook took a lot of flak for that one, but it sent a disturbing ethical ripple throughout the web. Just how secure is our Internet history? What kind of privacy do we have?
I'm talking about Internet Service Providers - in my case, good ol' RCN, which controls my connection to the World Wide Web and thus all the personal data that's stored on it. Your websites? Cached. Your search engine history? Saved as history. Your downloads? Tagged and bagged. It's all there, from the very first Internet link to what you just now clicked, saved as encoded cookies sitting there as treats for whomever can reach the jar. The question is: Who's allowed in?
It might be speculation, but with enough financial incentive, it's very likely that ISPs will get in on the act and start selling our Internet records to advertising companies producing specialized content. It's probably already happening. I bet some firm, pushing Pepsi or porn or petroleum, is designing ads based off my entire RCN history.
Google already does this with their sidebar links prompted by key words in emails, news preferences and search engines. That's what we sign up for with a Google account, and it's docile enough. But take a look at Facebook. Last year, the website launched Beacon, a program to track your online purchases from select partner sites and broadcast them throughout your network - without your consent. After a huge backlash, Facebook removed the feature, yet founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed the technology will be refined and one day accepted. Facebook took a lot of flak for that one, but it sent a disturbing ethical ripple throughout the web. Just how secure is our Internet history? What kind of privacy do we have?
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Tim Kenney
posted 4/14/08 @ 4:22 PM EST
The non-profit should also work to prosecute those companies found practicing non-ethical data mining. There's a business model: providing a service while making your competition illegal. (Continued…)
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