I. Introduction
While third party cookies enable new web functionalities it also enables new risks exposure of a person’s web history. A person’s web history can inevitably reveal personal information which if exploited could lead to bad stuff(job opp/id theft/deals/black mail/embarassement). Thus, privacy should not be an option, it should be the default. Accordingly, browsers should disable third-party cookies by default; require users to "opt-in" to 3rd-party cookies).
II. How third party cookie works and the underlying web economics
Third party cookies enables single-sign-on authentication (e.g. Facebook Login), web analytics (e.g. Google Analytics), and third-party advertisements [1].3rd-party cookies enable 'third parties' - websites other than those the user explicitly visits in their browser's address bar or sees on their screen - to record the user's browsing history. The third party can then archive, analyse, and/or trade, sell the information they've recorded [2]. If a first-party website is untrustworthy, users may decline to visit it. But, since users are unaware of the very existence of many third-party websites, they cannot reward responsible sites and penalize irresponsible sites. Thus, Risks associated with third-party tracking are heightened by the lack of market pressure to exercise good security and privacy practices
Figure 1: A list of third party tracking sites on http://www.wired.com (Disconnect)
III. Arguments for opt-in policy
Enabling 3rd party cookies by default can cause a number of security and privacy concerns.
First, the information might be intentionally or inadvertently leaked out, causing physical, psychological or economic harm to the user. For example, a disgruntled employee of an online marketing firm might sell its tracking information to unscrupulous marketers, releasing. In 2011, Epsilon Data Management LLC had hackers had accessed names and email addresses in its systems. In the days that followed, more than 40 companies—including J.P. Morgan Chase, TiVo and others—have said that their customers were among the victims [2].
Secondly, majority of consumers are not willing to be tracked. According to a TRUSTe and Harris Interactive online survey [3], 78% of respondents would not consent to website analytics tracking, 85% would not consent to web browsing tracking for relevant ad, and 54% does not like. [4] When the options are available, 68% refuse to allow companies to share their information with a third party and 52% say that they choose to opt out of online behavioral advertising.
Finally, there is precedence for this opt-in decision. In 2009 the European Union passed the E-Privacy Directive legislation which required websites to acquire visitor consent before they could install cookies [5].
..., websites and online marketers do find ways around users’ precautions to gain personal information. There are many people out there who want to use personal information like credit card numbers or addresses to cause harm to others. These cases are the extremely negative ones that people want to and should avoid. The case of companies and third parties tracking browsing history and other information for advertising purposes hover over a finer line between good and bad. For some people, tracking can be considered convenient in terms of shopping for what they are interested in, and others may be uncomfortable with the thought of being tracked without knowing. As stated in the beginning, complete privacy is unlikely, but being informed about the tactics of the Internet can help one protect themselves and others in their care to be as careful and private as possible.
...ompanies’ databases without our awareness—much less our approval—the more deeply the Net is woven into our lives the more exposed we become. In order to stop online tracking, we have to take personal responsibility for the information we share and modify our privacy settings. We have to get bills and regulations passed by congress so laws can be made to limit corporations from tracking and sharing our personal formation and discipline and take action upon any corporation that does not abide by the rules.
“Human beings are not meant to lose their anonymity and privacy,” Sarah Chalke. When using the web, web users’ information tend to be easily accessible to government officials or hackers. In Nicholas Carr’s “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” Jim Harpers’ “Web Users Get As Much As They Give,” and Lori Andrews “Facebook is Using You” the topic of internet tracking stirred up many mixed views; however, some form of compromise can be reached on this issue, laws that enforces companies to inform the public on what personal information is being taken, creating advisements on social media about how web users can be more cautious to what kind of information they give out online, enabling your privacy settings and programs, eliminating weblining,
Did you know that almost everything you do on the internet is being tracked and recorded in some way? In the Article, George Orwell… Meet Mark Zuckerberg, by Lori Andrews, Andrews talks about how behavioral advertising, which is the tracking of consumer’s online activities in order to bring custom-made advertisements, is a topic that is concealed to many people and can cause damage. Search engines like Google store the searches you have made and in 2006 there were search logs released which had personal information that people were judged by (Andrews 716-717). Data aggregation is the main way Facebook makes its money. Andrews believes that it’s an invasion of privacy and is not known well enough by the public. This article is aimed at young and new internet users that are ignorant of the possible dangers on the web. Lori Andrews is successful at informing novice users about the dangers of behavioral
By receiving this information, the webservers could sell it as part of an advertising database resulting in both electronic and paper junk mail. Legislative action has been enacted to curtail the illegal use of personal information.
Imagine walking in a store or logging into a website and getting bombarded with questions about your personal information. Companies all around the world ask their customers so many personal things so that they can “snoop.” Snooping is to investigate or look around furtively in an attempt to find out something, especially information about someone's private affairs.By “snooping” the company's target certain people and use their website as one of the tools. Companies all around the world are “snooping” by getting certain customers to shop, designing their website accordingly, and asking personal information from shoppers for rewards rewards programs so they can snoop.
Web site administrators say that the primary purpose of cookies is not to track Internet surfing habits. Rather they argue that cookies allow users to customize their experiences on the web. Services like My Yahoo would not work nearly as smoothly without cookies.
The issue on privacy is extremely controversial in today’s world. As the United States’ use of the internet, a global web of interconnected computer networks, expands, so does its problem with privacy invasion. With the U.S. pushing for new laws governing internet use, citizens are finding their privacy being pulled right from underneath them. Web users are buying and selling personal information online as well as hacking users for more information. One may argue that there is no such thing as privacy on the internet, but privacy is a right among Americans, and should be treated as such.
However, the same personal data is being compromised and eroding privacy. Companies have been getting bolder in their attempts to gather, share and sell data. The latest trend is outsourcing data to third party companies for data processing, which can be done at a lower cost. One of the main problems with this approach is that a lot of very sensitive data is being sent, which could be harmful in the wrong hands. Most companies require their customers to "opt-out" to prevent their data from being shared with a company's affiliates. This process requires the customer to explicitly tell the company not to share their data, which is usually in the form of a web site or a survey sent in the mail. These surveys are often thrown away by consumers, so they don't even realize that they're giving the companies a green light to sell and share their data.
Internet privacy and security has become the concern of many individuals throughout recent years. There are a very limited amount of laws that have been enacted to combat computer or cyber related crimes. This has become an issue because as the internet grows increasingly popular so does the criminal and immoral behavior that abounds on it. With these crimes gaining in impact, effectiveness, and frequency, there needs to be more repercussions for these crimes. The United States government needs to increase restrictions on the amount and type of data on individuals from the internet, to prevent the government from invading privacy of citizens and to prevent companies from storing browser histories of individuals, to then sell that information to ad agencies and other companies.
To conclude, with the significance of e- business, consumer privacy becomes an important concern. The sales of consumer information and the lack of privacy awareness are the main causes of the privacy problem. The problem causes the harm to companies’ image, the troublesome to consumers, the loss of confidence in the rule of law and the increase in the awareness on privacy and respective solution are provided to tackle the consequences. Consumer privacy is an essential element in e-business. To further expand the utilization of e-business, each party should bear the responsibility to respect the privacy as to respect human rights.
In recent times we might consider that the right for privacy in one of our major achievements in our society. Unfortunately the same does not apply for the Internet. The Internet once considered a place for free information exchange and sharing, has the potential has becoming the biggest threat to its users. The commercialization of the Internet is one of the major reasons why the chances of a compromise of our privacy have increased. Customer profiling, address trading or simple lack of care with sensitive customer information are just some of the threats that this commercialization has bought to our ‘free’ Internet. Another reason being that with the increase of threats there is a regular change in technology to counter these threats. These changes make it harder for the already overstrained users to cope with the ever changing technology.
“For DNT to work though, the sites that were visited must agree to uphold the preference to not be tracked. Although, some large companies and corporations have agreed to honor the DNT, many have refused to because it threatens advertising dollars” (Fact Sheet 18). What is even more interesting are “cookies ”. This is when the internet/computer remembers an individual’s purchases, preferences and/or personal sections such as your address and has an automatic fill button that saves into your hardware drive. With cookies there are a variety of them such as first-party cookies vs third-party cookies. With first-party cookies they use this information to make offers to repeating users online. Third-party cookies can share your information with clearinghouses an in hopes to show advisements to users anticipating they will utilities them based off of their preferences. When you blocks third-party cookies it can increase your awareness of your privacy and security online. This helps block consumer and ad pop ups around the Web. Sometimes you can even have poor Internet privacy that is linked with cookies that the user is unaware of. There are websites on the World Wide Web that have the worst Internet privacy such as Facebook Apps. A pure example is back in 2010,
Papacharissi, Zizi, and Jan Fernback. "Online Privacy And Consumer Protection: An Analysis Of Portal Privacy Statements." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 49.3 (2005): 259-281. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.
...try to ensure Internet security. More practically, marketers must try to target consumer groups more accurately. Minimizing unwanted consumer contacts may reduce the intensity and visibility of some dimensions of privacy issues. Last, marketing researchers must attempt to define privacy operationally. Much has been said and written about consumer privacy, but we still have little understanding of what information consumers consider private, why they consider it private, and whether this set of information changes situationally or in response to other factors.