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Google tests the ‘do not track’ waters with a Chrome extension
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/24/google-tests-the-do-not-track-waters-with-a-chrome-extension/
Well, that didn’t take long. One day after agreeing to implement a do not track button as part of a new consumer bill of rights, Google has given the people what they want… sort of. Keep My Opt-Outs is a Chrome extension, developed by the Mountain View team, that will prevent advertisers from using your browsing history against you. Presumably, this function will get built straight into the browser one day but, for now, you have to go dig it up in the Chrome Web Store — far from an ideal solution. Still, a tepid step into the shallow end is better than no step at all. You can install the extension yourself at the source.
Google tests the ‘do not track’ waters with a Chrome extension originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google recently announced it was unifying its privacy policies and would be sharing the data it collects about users between all of its products, starting March 1st. That means your web searches and sites you visit will be combined with other Google products like Google Plus and YouTube. If you’d rather avoid that, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reminds us you can remove your Google search history and stop it from being recorded.
Turning off search history is one of the top Google settings you may already know about anyway if you didn’t want Google recording any sensitive searches (health, location, interests, religion, etc.), but with Google becoming more like AOL these days, now’s as good a time as any to check if you’ve got your web history paused or not.
If you’re not logged into Google already, log in. Then, go to https://google.com/history. Click “remove all Web History” and “OK”. Doing so will pause the recording of your searches going forward until you enable it again.
How to Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5881431/view-facebooks-entire-history-as-a-timeline
There’s a lot to mull over in Facebook’s just-filed S-1. But one thing jumped out at us right away: the way it presented its corporate history in a timeline view—the same way it now presents users’ histories.
It’s both an excellent way to present a long view of dense data, and a reminder of what the company is all about. Click the image to embiggen.
DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All Offline [Hackers]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5877679/anonymous-kills-department-of-justice-site-in-megaupload-revenge-strike
![medium 5110071c626aabb3982c51386de91283 DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All Offline [Hackers]](http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2012/01/5110071c626aabb3982c51386de91283.jpg "Anonymous Goes on Megaupload Revenge Spree: DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All Offline")
Anonymous has sure been quiet lately, but today’s federal bust of Megaupload riled ‘em up good: a retaliatory strike against DoJ.gov (and plenty of other foes) leaving them completely dead.
DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com is reporting the department’s site as universally nuked, and an Anonymous-affiliated Twitter account is boasting success. This is almost certainly the result of a quickly-assembled DDoS attack—and easily the widest in scope and ferocity we’ve seen in some time. If you had any doubts Anonymous is still a hacker wrecking ball, doubt no more.
The combination of the hacking nebula’s SOPA animosity—they’ve been a vocal opponent of the bill since its inception—combined with today’s sudden Megaupload news has made the group bubble over: hundreds upon hundreds of Anon operatives are in a plotting frenzy, chatting about which site will go down next. In Anon’s eyes, the government and media interests are responsible for the undue destruction of Megaupload (and the arrest of four of its operators), so it’ll be exactly those entities that’re feeling the pain right now. Pretty much every company that makes movies, TV, or music, along with the entirety of the federal government, is in Anonymous’ crosshairs.
Update: Anonymous says they’ve also knocked off the RIAA’s site—looks down for us at the moment as well.
Update 2: Universal Music Group has also fallen off an e-cliff.
Update 3: Goodbye for now, MPAA.org.
Update 4: Affected sites are bouncing in and out of life, and are at the very least super slow to load. Anon agents are currently trying to coordinate their DDoS attacks in the same direction via IRC.
Update 5: The US Copyright Office joins the list.
Update 6: This Anon sums up the mood in their “official” chat room at the moment:
Danzu: STOP EVERYTHING, who are we DoSing right now?
Update 7: Russian news service RT claims this is the largest coordinated attack in Anonymous’ history—over 5,600 DDoS zealots blasting at once.
Update 8: the Anonymous DDoS planning committee is chittering so quickly, it’s making my laptop fan spin.
Update 9: Major record label EMI is down for the count.
Update 10: La résistance est international—French copyright authority HADOPI bites the dust under Anon pressure.
Update 11: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has fallen and can’t get up.
Update 12: Anonymous has released a statement about today’s attacks.
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Cyber Monday E-Commerce Makes History
Source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/cyber-monday-e-commerce-makes-history-20215/
Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending this year, rising 22% from 2010 and representing the heaviest online spending day in history, and just the second day on record to surpass the billion-dollar threshold, according to November 2011 research from comScore. Data from comScore’s analysis indicates that for the holiday season-to-date (November 1-28), $15 [...]
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drag2share – drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)
Here’s The Information Facebook Gathers On You As You Browse The Web
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-tracking-2011-11
Facebook stirred up privacy concerns when it came out that its “Like” and “Share” buttons appearing all over the web actually report your visits back to Facebook servers.
Now Facebook engineering director Arturo Bejar has shared what personal information the company retains with its tracking cookies, as reported by USA Today.
When you’re logged in, Facebook will keep a timestamped list of the URLs you visit and pair it with your name, list of friends, Facebook preferences, email address, IP address, screen resolution, operating system, and browser.
When you’re logged out, it captures everything except your name, list of friends, and Facebook preferences. Instead, it uses a unique alphanumeric identifier to track you.
Keep in mind that Facebook isn’t tracking your entire browsing history, just your visits to sites with “Like” and “Share” buttons.
Bejar told USA Today that Facebook technically could link your name to your logged-out browsing data, but he “makes it a point not to do this.”
Why does Facebook gather all this info and what do they do with it? By keeping so many details, it makes it easier to identify fake accounts and scammers. By keeping track of what users “Like” around the web, Facebook can show people ads that will be the most interesting to them and generate more revenue.
Despite Facebook having the best intentions — wanting to maintain a high quality user experience and generate ad revenue — you can see why privacy experts are concerned.
Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
- THE APPLE INVESTOR: iOS 5-Twitter Integration Is Paying Off
- More Young People Want To Work Here Than Anywhere Else
- The 15 Tech Companies Young People Are Dying To Work For
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drag2share – drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)
Verizon begins collecting user data for targeted ads, is kind enough to offer ‘opt-out’ escape route
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/17/verizon-begins-collecting-user-data-for-targeted-ads-is-kind-en/
Verizon begins collecting user data for targeted ads, is kind enough to offer ‘opt-out’ escape route originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink TechCrunch | Verizon | Email this | Comments
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drag2share – drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)
More Kin Dirt Surfaces
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5581704/more-kin-dirt-surfaces
If people had talked this much about Kin while it was still alive, it might have stood a chance. Oh well! The battle continues to rage over who gets the write the final chapter in Kin’s history.
Mini-Microsoft has been a prime staging ground for these kinds of comments, with accusations aplenty being flung back and forth by current and former Microsoft employees. A sampling from today’s batch shows that Andy Lees is again a popular target:
All I can say as a former Windows Mobile employee who is now working for a competitor in the phone space is that this is good news for the rest of us. [...] Personally I quit because of the frustrating management and autocratic decision style of Terry Myerson and Andrew Lees. The only exec in the team myself and other folks respcted was Tom Gibbons who is now sidelined. Lees and Myerson don’t know consumer products or phones. Gibbons at least knows consumer product development. We often talk about how Andrew Lees still has a job but Microsoft’s loss is a gain for the rest of us.
And that the folks at Danger, acquired by Microsoft to help bring Kin to life, were confounded by the sudden perceived incompetence around them:
You are correct, the remaining Danger team was not professional nor did we show off the amazing stuff we had that made Danger such a great place. But the reason for that was our collective disbelief that we were working in such a screwed up place. Yes, we took long lunches and we sat in conference rooms and went on coffee breaks and the conversations always went something like this…”Can you believe that want us to do this?” Or “Did you hear that IM was cut, YouTube was cut? The App store was cut?” “Can you believe how mismanaged this place is?” “Why is this place to dysfunctional??”
Please understand that we went from being a high functioning, extremely passionate and driven organization to a dysfunctional organization where decisions were made by politics rather than logic.
So: we get it. All is not right with Microsoft’s corporate culture, which may spell trouble for Windows Phone 7. But in the meantime, can’t we just let sleeping Kins lie? [Mini Microsoft]
Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks?
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/04/inexplicable-rise-in-iphone-devs-app-store-sales-connected-to-i/
We’ve received a handful of tips this morning claiming something’s rotten in the state of the iTunes App Store, namely via the Book category. As of this writing, 42 of the top 50 books by revenue are from the seller Thuat Nguyen, whose company website (“mycompany”) leads to parked site www.home.com. A vast majority of these book apps were released in April, have little to no customer ratings or reviews, appear to be in Vietnamese (despite claims in the side bar that the supported languages are English and Japanese), and may or may not be infringing on copyrighted work — we’re noticing a lot of Dragon Ball art here. To give sales a sense of scope, Twilight series conclusion Breaking Dawn is hovering only at 34 right now.
So, how did these books hit the top of the charts? The other half of this story has to do with a claimed rise in iTunes account hacking, with a number of people reporting up to hundreds of dollars being spent unwillingly from their account to these specific books. Coincidence? Let’s not mince words here, something is definitely amiss, and it’s not looking good. Just to be safe, might wanna check your purchase history under Apple Account information. We’ve reached out to Apple and will let you know as soon as we hear back.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink In Depth with Tech, Mac Stories, Twitter | iTunes | Email this | Comments
Offermatic Gives You Sizeable Discounts Based on Your Spending Habits
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5532835/offermatic-gives-you-sizeable-discounts-based-on-your-spending-habits
The best discounts are for things you actually buy. Free web service Offermatic uses your credit card, through the same back-end as Mint.com, to offer 40-90 percent discounts on products similar to what you’ve already purchased.
If you’re not squeamish about providing financial information to financial scanning sites like Mint.com, Offermatic is a pretty sweet deal. You register your credit cards with Offermatic through their secure system, which then scans your purchases and spits back out high-discount offers from their advertisers, made to match your interests. You won’t necessarily get coupons for the exact stores you shop at, but the examples seem to be highly related.
Depending on how much you spend, you can also make up to $15 a year back per card (though, to be honest, we’re not about to spend $1,000 a month just to get $15 back at the end of the year, and we wouldn’t recommend you do either). But getting 40-90 percent off some pretty popular stores isn’t bad for a free service. For the folks on the fence about how Offermatic makes their cut, here’s what their FAQ has to say:
- If your service is free, how do you make money?
We make money by saving you money. We get a commission from the advertiser when our users purchase their offer through us.
- Do you sell my personal or individual data?
Never. When we send you an offer from one of our advertisers, it’s based on your anonymous purchase history. Advertisers do not know your name, email address, or location. Only if you choose to purchase an offer will that information be provided to the offer merchant so you can redeem the offer with them. We do not – and will not – provide or sell any personally identifiable information in order to present you an offer.
So, if you’re less than frightened about card-watching sites like Mint or Blippy, Offermatic is a deal you’ll want to take a closer look at.
Digital Consigliere
Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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