Researchers Expose Tracking Service That Can't Be Dodged 173
Worf Maugg writes with this excerpt from Wired:
"Researchers at U.C. Berkeley have discovered that some of the net's most popular sites are using a tracking service that can't be evaded — even when users block cookies, turn off storage in Flash, or use browsers' 'incognito' functions. The service, called KISSmetrics, is used by sites to track the number of visitors, what the visitors do on the site, and where they come to the site from — and the company says it does a more comprehensive job than its competitors such as Google Analytics."
Re:more importantly... (Score:5, Interesting)
How about actually reading the article?
Kissmetrics has a single identifier that is used and tracked across all sites that use it for an identifiable visitor. It would be stupidly easy to aggregate this data and get a complete profile of a person, esp. considering the sites using it - what shows they watch, when they watch them, what music they listen to and when, combined with geolocation data, where they do these things, and for sites with subscriptions, they will have credit card information and home location and contact information. The researchers have no way of knowing if such information is sold between sites, but if there was no "tracking" application to it, why is the identifier not unique between sites?
Re:more importantly... (Score:2, Interesting)
ok, so how do they collect their data if it is not through cookies?