US Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking 228
Arashtamere writes "A study on consumer perceptions about online privacy, undertaken by the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that every move they make online can be, and often is, tracked by online marketers and advertising networks. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which online tracking is happening or how the information obtained can be used. More than half of those surveyed — about 55 percent — falsely assumed that a company's privacy polices prohibited it from sharing their addresses and purchases with affiliated companies. Nearly four out of 10 online shoppers falsely believed that a company's privacy policy prohibits it from using information to analyze an individuals' activities online. And a similar number assumed that an online privacy policy meant that a company they're doing business with wouldn't collect data on their online activities and combine it with other information to create a behavioral profile."
Disclaimers aside... (Score:4, Insightful)
Privacy is about more than legal compliance, it's fundamentally about user trust. Be transparent with your users about your privacy practices. If your users don't trust you, you're out of business.
astonishing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this shows that the users do not know enough not to trust online services. Also unfortunately, (often) the only way to remove yourself from the grasp of these people is to opt out of their services, which is bad business and bad service.
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is what your run-of-the-mill Slashbot fails to grasp. Most people just don't care. And any attempt at educating family and friends (or the masses) goes in one ear and out the other.
Not just online tracking... (Score:4, Insightful)
No Real Surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:2, Insightful)
i keep waiting for the day (Score:3, Insightful)
and honestly? i side with the average guy on the street with (non)this issue. the average guy on the street looks at the data generated from his random meanderings on the web as useless, unimportant, and not a matter of privacy. and you know what?: he's right. frankly, that some database might know what i visited on eBay, then amazon.com, then netflix is not some horrible raping of my psyche. it really isn't
someone could track the wanderings of people around the supermarket too. is that information deeply personal to you? it is? so then that means you define your deeply personal identity based on what aisle you walk down in in the supermarket? pffft
then they use that information to pitch DVD titles at you, or pasta, or a hallmark card
oh my god. some database knows i bought pepto bismol. now it wants to sell me toilet paper. MY PERSONAL IDENTITY HAS BEEN HORRIBLY RAPED. I HAVE BEEN DEHUMANIZED AND DEMEANED. MY SENSE OF SELF-WORTH IS LOWERED. IT'S ORWELL'S 1984
pfffffffffft
next nonissue please
Re:astonishing (Score:5, Insightful)
A very valid point. The solutions to most of the Internet's privacy problems lie in software design, such as default encryption and anomymizing of traffic. Although nobody can force Microsoft to create a half decent browser, or anything else for that matter, we can at least encourage open source software developers to reduce the end-user's internet fingerprint. Sure, anyone who is interested in not being followed around on the 'net can achieve this by installing a couple of firefox plugins and so on, but the way for the privacy conscious to protect themselves best is to encourage everyone else to do the same.
If we consider privacy infringement being akin to getting syphilis, then apart from not using the internet (abstinence), or installing and configuring extra software (condoms, which fall off, or don't get used in the first place), the only option is to supply people with genitalia which is pre-shrink-wrapped, if you get my drift.
Not a surprise, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Some (GOogle) will say that the privacy policy explains all this. Humbug! First you have to follow a link to find the policy. Second the lawyers and marketeers have obfuscated what is really being done. Further, they can change the policy without notice. When they change you have to know they have changed and then go and read the new policy. How one is supposed to know when no notice is provided is a mystery.
All in all, Google is doing a lot of evil if you believe in personal privacy. They are an invasive collector of personal data and they hide the extent and nature of what they are doing. Google makes Microsoft bashful in their business practices.
Re:U. S. Consumers Clueless ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:U. S. Consumers Clueless ... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. Pretty much all consumers are clueless. No wonder - their chief source of information about a product is advertising.
Look at how many by sugar water labeled as "Grape Drink" or "Orange Drink", thinking that there must be real juice in it, because they won't take the time to read the label, and manufacturers aren't required to state in bold letters "THIS IS NOT REAL FRUIT JUICE". Or "Best mileage in its class!" - which really means "it sucks gas, so we made a 'class' with others that suck even more for bogus comparison purposes". Or "dermatologist - recommended". Or the P4s that were, clock tick for clock tick, slower than the P3s, but would "enhance your multimedia experience."
Maybe public education should include classes in Critical Analysis of Ad Claims 101 and Weasel Word Composition.
Re:i keep waiting for the day (Score:3, Insightful)
Sensationalist privacy zealots are afraid of their own shadow. They live in a world that is about to break down their door for god only knows or cares what. Why the paranoia? Are you doing something that someone should care about?
I look at porn, I shop online, I've bought a butt plug online before...do you feel more powerful for knowing that? Do I feel guilty, ashamed, or concerned with the fact that you know this? No, so why would anyone else care? If someone really did care, that means I have a stalker, and I think it's kinda cool if I had a real stalker. I little creeped out, but still strangely proud.
Go about your business, live your life, let everyone else live theirs, and spend more time changing the things that are going to make your life suck like the fact that our planet is about to push the big reset button if we don't get our shit together.
Re:i keep waiting for the day (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't when it's some third-party non-important entity looking at your surfing habits. However, it is very much an issue when the government decides that because you are waiving your Constitutional rights [slashdot.org] they can subpoena that same information to use as part of their illegal nationwide net of information on citizens.
I'm sorry if YOU are lumped in with the general uncaring public about something that shouldn't be the business of any group of Marketers, government agencies, or anyone except
Thanks for offering me the chance to bite, I enjoy it sometimes.
Re:i keep waiting for the day (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are not the normal consumer of your Pepto Dismal purchases, please fill out the attached "Not A Regular Consumer" form to identify said user and your HPPR will be returned to the normal-risk group.
Sincerely,
Your Health Insurance Extortionist [msn.com]
Re:US consumers are clueless about technology (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd think that if someone is going to buy a car, that they would know everything a certified mechanic knew.
Or, maybe the people that you talked to when you were tech support were just using their computers for entertainment and have neither the need nor the desire to "get under the hood" of the computer.
Typically people in tech support forget that they are paid to support the person calling them, not the other way around. I understand dealing with the public can be a pain in the ass, but if you don't like it, do your profession and the public a favor and quit.
Re:US consumers are clueless about technology (Score:3, Insightful)
> person if they know simple computer concepts such as partitioning and operating systems...
As a tech person, perhaps you think regular consumers should be able to partition their hard drives, but for most people computers and hi-tech gadgets are tools no matter how prevalent or even how important they are in our lives. They don't care how their hard drives are virtually divided for use by their OS, and why should they? I know how it works because I'm interested in technology and I chose to program computers, but I know this is not what life is about.
Perhaps it is ridiculous for people not to know what operating system they run, but again why should they care? It's a tool they use to type stuff, check email, and surf the web, and even when it doesn't work, they just want somebody to make it work again. They don't want to know anything about it, and ideally they shouldn't need to know anything about it. All they should have to know is how to make it do what they want.
Hopefully we can get software to the point that it is that simple to use. Of course you and me can continue to hack at our command lines, but I don't see a problem with people only being concerned with what they want to be concerned with, and that often does not include knowing how to partition hard drives.
Now going back to the topic and on the other hand, I definitely think people should be fully aware of who has access to information about them. This is completely different from consumers needing to know about technology.
Re:i keep waiting for the day (Score:4, Insightful)
You can never have a career in public politics.
When times are tough and you find yourself desperate enough to take any job to feed your children, you won't have a chance at companies run by members of the 'moral majority' who decide to do background checks.
Pray you are lucky enough that neither of those, nor any number of other scenarios ever come about for you personally. But unless the useful idiots like yourself get a clue, its guaranteed to happen to more than enough people to damage our society.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US consumers are clueless about technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Does that make you any more clueless? no. Simply uninterested in the workings of a particular bit of technology. Just as you can point to things those people are disinterested in figuring out in a higher level of detail, I can find a similar number of things you would be disinterested in too.
I'm a sysadmin/coder who studies biochemistry. Chances are you can't explain how, say, a simple battery or perhaps a fuel cell works on a biochemical level. I can. So? Am I better than you? less clueless than you? What can I infer about you from this? Nothing really. Chances are I know stuff you don't, you know stuff I don't, and the users you bash know shit neither of us does.
From your wild proclamations about users you really want to feel smarter than, I can, however, infer about you quite a bit.
Re:U. S. Consumers Clueless ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My worst offender? ACLU! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hah!
Hah! Hah!
Re:US consumers are clueless about technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US consumers are clueless about technology (Score:2, Insightful)
I think it would have done more good to ask GP whether people should learn how to use and maintain their hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, or even guns, before being allowed to potentially do serious damage to themselves or others with them.
And with that, I'll pose that question. So, onefriedrice, should they? And, if so, why, then, should they not learn the basics of, and how to use and maintain their multi-ton killing machinnes (vehicles) or machines capable of being hijacked and used to, collectively, cost businesses and governments (read: consumers and citizens, you don't truly believe the B's and G's are conna eat that cost, do you?) billions of dollars?
That's right; botnets not only slow down one person's computer, they slow down, at the very least, an entire network segment of an ISP while they're being used for an attack. They cost that ISP money. If the user is on metered bandwidth, they cost the user money. If they are used to DDoS a government, they cost that government money in bandwidth costs; a business, the same, plus lost sales. If they are used to hack in and steal banking or credit information, they cost untold numbers of people untold amounts of money.
People need to be educated about these things because that money doesn't just appear in their pockets and that loss doesn't disappear from their accounting. The losses are passed directly onto us, citizens and consumers, through higher taxes and prices.
While we're educating, let's make sure they know which end of the gun is supposed to be facing them when they pull the trigger. For some, this will be the muzzle, for others, this will be the butt.
Customers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:2, Insightful)
Heck, I not only don't care. I don't understand people who do.
Exactly what is the issue with advertisers using this information to create a behavioural profile? These are all behaviours you are exhibiting in public. Believe it or not, your friends, co-workers, and the cute blonde waitress at the coffee shop have all created "behavioural profiles" of you based on your actions.
It's what we do. If you are so ashamed of what you've purchased or looked at...my suggestion is to stop doing it, or get some counseling.
Of course, this will quite likely be responded to by some idiotic "slippery slope" type argument....
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:5, Insightful)
And, no I don't think brainwashing is a harsh word to use. Ads are designed specially to make you buy products you otherwise wouldn't, mostly by making you feel more familiar and comfortable with the product. Many slashdot readers probably think that they are above getting tricked by commercials, but that is the delusion that adcompanies want you to believe. Intelligence doesn't matter into it, because ads plays on more primal instincts. The only way to get away from it is to avoid the ads completly.
One common argument for ads is that they inform you of products, but that is a very weak argument. Ads are very rarely informative. Information in general is better left to 3d party reviews. Of course, with the reach of todays marketing departments it is difficult to know how influenced the 3d party reviewers are, but it is atleast trying.
So how do this tie in with online tracking. It is simple, The more accuratly that they can advertise products that you could be convinced into buying, the more powerfully they are able to change your opinions.
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the direct equivalent to conducting focused surveillance on you, your family, your friends. This is normally the domain of the police, and PI's who do it have to obide by license terms, but suddenly technology has reduced the cost to a point private companies can now do it.
it's outrageous, and represents and invasion of privacy.
If individuals do it instead of corporations they are subjected to prosecution under anti-stalking laws, but apparently you think it's fine as long as it's a corporation.
Finally, allowing corporations to sell/share this data and not invoking constitutional rights to privacy (think of precedents regarding segregation and bathroom cams), these corporations can then sell this behavioral profile to the government uncontested, allowing them to keep orwellian fbi files on you a-la j edgar hoover and the mccarthy era. ( I think they already do)
it's not a tinfoil hat slippery slope argument, it's established fact. A corporation will abuse everything they possibly can to pursue profit until they are affirmatively told "NO, and if you continue you will face criminal and civil penalties"
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:3, Insightful)
That would explain why I've spend hundreds, nay thousands of dollars purchasing items I don't need over the last year - because I've been seduced by the advertising I'm exposed to daily.
Oh, wait. I haven't.
I suspect you are projecting your own weaknesses onto other people.
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, wait. I haven't."
Of course not. The point of advertising isn't to convince you to buy products that you never would buy otherwise. Most everyone could see through that. The real point of advertising a product, is that the next time you go to the store to buy a product of that type, you will buy the advertised brand instead of the competitors brand, based on a sense of familarity, instead of any better considerations.
And I would be very surprised if you were somehow immune to it. Everyone thinks they are, but it is rarely the case. If you are the exception, I have to apologize.
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:2, Insightful)
If individuals do it instead of corporations they are subjected to prosecution under anti-stalking laws, but apparently you think it's fine as long as it's a corporation.
The problem is that everything you do online is a two-party transaction and inherently not "private" in the sense of using the restroom or writing in your diary. The other party in the transaction certainly has a right to remember it, and "mining" that data is little different than the store clerk remembering that you've bought all of Neal Stephenson's books and pointing out that a new one was just released. When humans do this, it's called service and is a highly sought feature. Not everyone wants to get his hair cut by a different, anonymous machine every month.
Here's the part I don't get: a lot of privacy advocates compare this customer tracking to "focused, personal surveillance," as though a machine keeping track of you and 200 million other people somehow has the same sense of exposure as having Sam Spade camped outside your door. For me, the scale of this vast conspiracy of internet trackers carries its own inherent anonymity. If I get a Viagra ad, it's not because some guy knows I browsed a pr0n site last week, it's because some algorithm, weighted by advertiser sales, weighted my history that way. My privacy only feels invaded if there is judgment or unfair advantage involved.
Re:Disclaimers aside... (Score:2, Insightful)
But see, how can they deliver informative ads if they can't track what you're doing? If you're looking for a doohickey and search for it online, it's convenient to you (and the advertiser) if the ads which appeared for you happened to be for doohickies. Why waste people's times with irrelevant ads, better to target them to the audience that wants them.