The Internet is awash with “anonymous” information that really isn’t all that anonymous. This information allows companies to provide a more customized Internet, one that acts and reacts to your thoughts, interests, and desires.
With just a small amount of that data, for example, Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) can recommend books that even your closest friend wouldn’t suggest.
When you think about how much the Internet truly knows about you (search habits, purchase behavior, Web surfing patterns), the thought is downright exhilarating.
Or frightening. Consider the now-famous article from The New York Times, where a reporter was able to take unidentified log files (surfing data) from AOL and determine exactly who was doing the surfing. In one case, they were able to match “user number 4417749” to Thelma Arnold of Lilburn, Ga., just by looking at her “anonymous” search data.
And that was three years ago.
Search data isn’t really that anonymous when you think about it, despite what Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) or AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) might lead you to believe. In the case of Thelma, she had searched on “landscapers in Lilburn, GA,” “Arnold,” “homes sold in shadow lake subdivision Gwinnett county Georgia,” “60s Single men,” “numb fingers,” “dry mouth,” “thyroid,” “dog that urinates on everything,” and “swing sets.”
As the reporters put it, “search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern.” And it didn’t take the reporters much time to track back her “anonymous” search files directly to Thelma. You can imagine Thelma’s surprise though, when she opened her door to find a reporter from the Times asking whether she’d been able to get the dog pee out of her carpet last week!
Unfortunately, many mainstream companies are getting sloppy and are openly violating our privacy. Even companies that aim to “do no evil” often inadvertently do so.
A few years ago, Google released a software program called Google Alerts. With alerts, you can sign up to be notified of news and Web alerts by typing in your email address and choosing keywords to be alerted to (e.g., “Bob Dylan LA Concert”). And it is smart, too: If you already signed up to be alerted to “Bob Dylan LA Concert” and try to sign up again, Google will instantly tell you that you have already signed up.
Smart, but maybe a bit too smart. Go to Google Alerts and use someone else’s email address and you can reverse engineer what they are tracking, as the system will confirm or deny the presence of existing alerts as you type in keywords.
If you had the email address for, say, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, you could quickly learn who he keeps tabs on, simply by typing in their names and getting confirmation. Maybe Schmidt keeps a close eye on Larry Page, one of Google’s founders. Maybe Schmidt regularly tracks himself. It would certainly cause Schmidt some grief if we learned that he decided to ignore Google’s other co-founder, Sergey Brin, entirely (no offense, Sergey). And what if we found out Steve Ballmer was tracking Sergey (Sergey is redeemed)? Or worse, that he was tracking some small public company that could be an acquisition target for Microsoft? [Ed. note: And what if his dog has peed on the carpet?]
As for me, I learned that no one on my executive team had alerts for me except my head of public relations (I used to have alerts for them until I found this bug). My mom and wife were nice enough to have alerts for me, but I digress. (I stopped my research after learning that, as it all started getting a bit sinister.)
Google will certainly fix this when they learn of the problem, but new problems will emerge if companies are not more careful. The Internet is an evolving creature, and companies have an obligation to ensure that it is not abused.
Our privacy will always be at risk, but the benefits are tremendous if companies work to minimize that risk. What we give up is small; what we gain is the Internet.
The post is mixing scenarios. The Times report was given access to AOL's internal search logs. While users agree to AOL gathering information, AOL would normally keep this very private as it is key to their advertising systems and services.
To build a profile about a person using Google Alerts is something all together different. While, as the author notes, determining if a person already has an alert is possible for obvious items, the infinite number of possible alerts makes using it to profile difficult without already knowing something about somebody.
Additionally, the person whose email you are using is going to receive "confirmation emails", tipping him or her off that somebody is trying to pry.
I dont really know why people think that there should be privacy on the Internet. They are on the Internet because they want a public forum. Why isnt the public allowed to know the veracity of the poster. Why should they hide behind anonymity.
Why should the Internet be any different than the real world. As Spiderman says, With great power comes great responsibility. People want the power but no responsibility.
I agree, the topic that we don't have privacy is old, but what to do with that is new (er?).
The google profile might be a good approach, try to save yourself - forget about hiding eveything, just guide them to where you want them to go - a personal website instead of a 2002 comment you made on a blog.
I have to second the comments from Ira Winkler. This post does not reflect any new or current information. We have no privacy - obvious, we get it.
This article is a better example of the Freemium concept we are seeing with web sites and have, im nay ways, seen for decades with book reviews/excerpts. Except, because the FREE part is not current/attractive it is actually less likley to rope/interest potential readers.
I am looking for writers/thinkers on the bleeding edge and this post shows old content on privacy and poor use of the freemium concept which is taking off on the web today.
The more that I read about the lack of privacy on the internet, the more I become desensitized about it. Does anyone else feel that way? When I first heard about it, it freaked me out, now? I'm just like:
Meh, nothing is private these days!
It makes me wonder, will we become that way if we lose privacy in our day to day life? Like "1984" style. Is the lack of privacy on the internet the first step to a world where the government will know everything from what you ate today to what you're thinking?
One thought, though, to dovetail your privacy point--people may not have privacy on the Internet, but should they?
Caller ID brought about privacy issues that didn't really go anywhere, and there are many public-interest benefits of caller ID, namely with 9-1-1 and emergency responders.
If Internet privacy doesn't exist, doesn't it seem reasonable to think television privacy doesn't exist? Certainly, pay-per-view logs are kept in order to bill. It would seem logical to think that other viewing patterns are tracked.
People I know seem to like the iTunes Genius function, and the Amazon function mentioned in the post must be effective because it's used more and more by competitors. That is some encroachment of privacy, but people don't seem to mind, although mobile advertising based on their GPS or disclosure of their email address seem to drive a different reaction.
Cameras are everywhere, which sometimes provide for safety but also spook out many people.
My question more is, "Where should the privacy fence be?" And, I don't think it's fair to simply say it's too late because laws and regulation often come after technology. It may be too late in that many people accept the lack of privacy, but, Ira, you're a pretty smart guy and on the leading edge of that thought. What you consider common sense may not yet speak for the herd.
At least that's what it seems like to me--that the herd will experience an awakening over the next few years, and, if so, lawmakers are even farther behind. Where is the thought leadership from a public policy standpoint (not academics, but legislators)? I don't think privacy is even on their top 10 list of issues, but should it or will it be?
People famous from the hierarchical media world have a huge disadvantge in the Internet and Social Networks world.
First of all, everything is already "known" about them. They have nothing left to reveal. It's strange (and bizarre) in a way, that star of the 20th century, Steve Ballmer, would be left to spying on people living life in the 21st. It sort of reminds me of Sunset Boulevard, where the silent stars who couldn't make the move to talkies are left to wither away in their mansions...peering at life in the street, from behind lace curtains.
BTW: Schmidt, Ballmer et al have a team of people to monitor the Internet for them. They dont waste their time doing it themselves. There are also companies out there like Cyveillance that do Internet monitoring for people.
In all honesty, this article is based on a story that is several years old with nothing new to report. Gee, we have no privacy on the Internet. Thanks for the news flash. Ironically though, there is no proof point that the condition still exists, although we have to admit that it does.
At this point, if anyone still thinks they have privacy on the Internet, they are a fool. But to this post, please give us something new to at least help make the point to others. Not even mentioning the privacy people give up on social networks is also bad.
It is my assumption that this is a book excerpt, but there should have been a current hook to make it relevant.
You can't expect to wander arround in public and stay anonymous. The items you purchase at the grocery store can be used to determine the number and ages of your household. Does that keep you from eating? Trying to be anonymous will draw attention to you faster than moving to Ruby Ridge.
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
The smartphone market reached a significant milestone, a breakthrough that may cause vendors to celebrate but could strain the capabilities of IT service desks.
In the fall of 2011, around 160,000 students in 190 countries enrolled in a Stanford-sponsored online course about artificial intelligence. About 23,000 completed the course and got certificates, including 248 who got a perfect score. The university offered the same course the old-fashioned way to students sitting in Stanford classrooms. None of the those students got a perfect score.
As Mitch Wagner discussed today, Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr. The big Internet debate at the moment is whether Tumblr will be good or bad for Yahoo. Regardless of their stances on the future of Yahoo itself, many claim that Yahoo will somehow ruin Tumblr.
Has China stolen a march on the West, developing an Internet architecture that is not only based on IPv6, but is also inherently secure from both internal and external attack?
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Ushering in a new era of cognitive computing systems, IBM announced today the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, a technology breakthrough that allows brands to crunch big data in record time to transform the way they engage clients in key functions such as customer service, marketing, and sales.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
Email This
