Mozilla 'Collusion' Reveals Online Tracking

[Galaxia2002]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/privacy/232601687

Mozilla enlists Ford Foundation to support development of tracking visualization software to help Internet users make informed privacy choices.

By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek
February 29, 2012 10:38 AM


Mozilla on Tuesday said the Ford Foundation has agreed to support the development of Collusion, browser add-on software designed to show Internet users how they're being tracked online.

Gary Kovacs, CEO of Mozilla, demonstrated Collusion at the TED conference on Tuesday morning. In a blog post, he said the software "will allow us to pull back the curtain and provide users with more information about the growing role of third parties, how data drives most Web experiences, and ultimately how little control we have over that experience and our loss of data."

A Ford Foundation spokesperson said in an email that its grant is for $300,000. The philanthropic organization says on its website that it is "is pleased to support Collusion as part of our efforts to promote universal access, open systems, and diversity online."

In a related effort, Mozilla on Thursday at the Mobile World Congress in Spain plans to demonstrate Do Not Track, a privacy initiative designed to allow browser users to opt-out of online tracking, for its forthcoming Open Web Devices platform. The company has already implemented Do Not Track in Firefox for Android and says that, to date, 18% of users have chosen to opt-out of being tracked.

[ See our full Mobile World Congress coverage. ]

Privacy, it seems, is finally receiving serious consideration from both companies and lawmakers: Just last week, the White House proposed a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights.

Mozilla's effort to limit online tracking comes as its primary benefactor and competitor, Google, is being raked over the coals for bypassing the default privacy settings for users of Apple's Safari and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers, ostensibly because the settings interfered with other desired services.

Google is also under fire for attempting to simplify and unify the privacy policies for some 60 of its services into a single document, an effort that will allow the sharing of data across Google services to deliver more relevant content and advertising. The company plans to implement that change on Thursday.

Collusion is a visualization tool that may help users gain a better understanding of the privacy implications of using the Internet. With data from the user's browser cookies and Web history, it creates an interactive diagram to illustrate how website visits are tracked by advertising and analytics companies.

Mozilla's Collusion website acknowledges that not all tracking is bad. At the same time, it suggests there's something sinister about online tracking.

"If you haven't realized it yet, companies are tracking you across most of the sites you visit daily on the Web," Mozilla explains. "It's quite likely that these companies know more about you than your government. Some of them might even know more about you than your best friends."

 

[agni]

Gee, what a backward world. I "love" how they feel entitled to our consent, unless we opt out. How about the opposite, we opt out of everything, unless we give consent ?

It's like a perv or stalker who peeks through the window, he/she can, unless we opt out. Anything wrong with a picture ? Ah, that's right. It's called marketing research, so nothing wrong with this.

 

[griffin]

Mozilla Firefox and other web browsers have a 'do not track' option that's supported by a web industry initiative of the same name, but my impression is that getting websites and especially advertisers to honor that is still a work in progress.

Since the internet is anarchic above the level of the bare minimum technical standards that make it work, and this is overall a good thing as opposed to controls imposed by governments and/or corporations, there will always be those that ignore or bypass all standards of decency, not to mention intelligence agencies and criminal scam artists.

You can just accept it, if you live in a relatively free country, or take steps to protect yourself, which might be imperative if you have the misfortune to live in a country that has a dangerously oppressive government. That's a matter of degree, of course, if one understands that all governments are oppressive to some extent, because that is their essential nature.

There are steps you can take to retain your privacy, depending on how much effort you want to put into it. There are alternative search engines, such as Startpage https://startpage.com/ that hide your IP address. You can use a web proxy, or TOR http://www.torproject.org/, or even a virtual private network (VPN). The Electronic Frontier Foundation has some tips about these and other tactics https://www.eff.org/wp/six-tips-protect-your-search-privacy.

 

[ocean59]

Hi griffin, and thanks for the useful information. As an FYI, A few of these topics have been discussed on other threads as well (Tor, proxies, and other options). If you are interested in seeing what has been covered so far, you can always use the Search feature up top.

Also, to the forum! After registering, many people choose to post an introduction over at the Newbie's Forum so as not to remain a stranger. It doesn't have to contain anything personal, and you can feel free to look through a few examples to see how others have done it.


Welcome again, and hope to see you around.