Mozilla’s recent announcement to block all third-party cookies by default in the new version of Firefox has sparked renewed interest in these topics, and as you would expect, opinions vary wildly depending on perspective and priorities. Reactions from those representing the ad industry predominantly have been critical, while many privacy advocates have applauded the decision. My reaction was one of frustration for several reasons, but one in particular that is relevant to this discussion — my company builds and sells a product that is used by advertisers and ad agencies to “track” what is happening online.

Common Theme, Different Issues

To adequately discuss privacy, you must first define what it is you’re discussing. Currently, there are two major movements being debated, both of which involve the way Web browsers and providers of online content (predominantly publishers and advertisers) exchange and store information.

First, the Do Not Track (DNT) HTTP header was designed in conjunction with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is intended to provide consumers with a standard way to indicate to Web applications, digital advertisers and publishers they do not wish to have their behavior tracked across Web properties. All major browsers currently support this feature and the industry is moving toward adopting it as a standard; however, last year Microsoft announced that beginning with Internet Explorer 10, it would enable DNT by default, subsequently causing widespread confusion since the header was designed to be opt-in, not opt-out. For this reason, the vast majority of publishers and advertisers currently ignore all stated DNT preferences, including Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Mozilla’s recent announcement involves a separate debate about whether or not browsers will accept third-party cookies. For the uninitiated, cookies are small files that include data that allow your computer to interact with the websites you visit. Third-party cookies traditionally are set by advertising companies and analytics firms, such as mine, to help understand what is happening on a website over a certain period of time. Prior to Mozilla’s announcement, only Safari blocked third-party cookies by default among the major browser providers. However, Mozilla’s market share (approximately 20 percent according to Net Applications) is much larger than Safari’s and represents “critical mass,” thus the renewed interest in this topic.

Why We Track

Companies track information online for different reasons. In the analytics world, our business is one of scale. Unlike behavioral targeting, our business model is predicated on the ability to identify correlation across millions of advertising “events” and making recommendations based on huge data sets across large-scale media campaigns.

Typically, advertisers purchase huge inventories of ads across a large number of sites their desired audiences frequent. Each of these ads has a different price associated with it, which increasingly is determined by demand and effectiveness. To make sure they get what they pay for, advertisers often choose to work with an analytics firm to better understand which ad campaigns and channels (search, display, etc.) are more effective and why. As a simple example, browser cookies allow us to determine which advertising is resonating with consumers and how many times that message should be displayed before it gets annoying and loses effectiveness, allowing advertisers to avoid waste and poor experiences.

Unintended Consequences

By most estimates, the first online ad appeared roughly 20 years ago. As a technology, cookies have been used for almost as long. They also serve as a fundamental component that underpins the economics of the open web. Small and upcoming publishers rely on the data provided through third-party advertising technologies to quantify and price the “real estate” accompanying their content, often selling ad inventory as part of large-scale networks that provide reach and attract larger advertising customers. Without these networks, it’s difficult to see these publishers attracting ad revenue necessary to compete and offer high-quality, ad-supported content. Paywalls will also become more prevalent for those publishers that have sufficient resources and audiences to support them.

Also, by eliminating the ability for publishers/advertisers to price and purchase higher-quality placements based on relevance, you can expect a return to “spray and pray” tactics where ad inventory prices plummet and the total number of ads displayed and purchased rises drastically. In other words, if you think some ads are disruptive today, get ready to see much more aggressive tactics employed.

Lastly, while cookies are a relatively mature technology with existing browser controls, industry opt-outs and comprehensive privacy policies, there are alternate tracking approaches that don’t have the same level of consumer control. These alternate methods — including device fingerprinting, flash cookies, local storage, etc. — represent the Wild West of tracking technologies. They are very difficult to detect, lack proper controls and can be abused by fringe tracking companies. None of them represent progress or improvement for the customer.

Choice

The advertising community takes privacy seriously and we agree with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), National Advertising Initiative, Digital Advertising Alliance and other organizations advocating for the continued development of existing consumer-choice mechanisms. We welcome participation from Mozilla and other browser vendors that seek to deliver easy and transparent privacy solutions to consumers; however, these need to be developed in concert with both advertisers and publishers to be effective.

Paul Pellman is the CEO of Adometry, Inc., a marketing analytics provider that generates insights about the performance of marketing campaigns through combining and interpreting advertising data from online and offline channels. Prior to joining Adometry, he was executive vice president of marketing for Hoover’s.

What if we could actually put a price on our personal data and use it as currency? That’s what a New York City-based start-up called Enliken is trying to do.

But Enliken’s problem is that it needs a critical mass of publishers, users and advertisers to all buy into this system. And even if done well, the idea of explicitly trading data for money is one that many people will find deeply creepy.

Today, Enliken is introducing the tools for publishers to provide a new kind of paywall, where users can opt to share their data instead of paying money to see premium content. It’s called the DataWall.

The seed-funded Enliken doesn’t have any publisher partners yet for the DataWall, but the company has decided that going to publishers directly is a better approach than what it used to do: Get users to download software that tracked themselves, sell that data on their behalf, and help them donate the proceeds to charity. That product is being shut down in support of the new DataWall.

Who will use the DataWall? “We’re talking to ten big media companies, but nobody whose name I can give,” said Enliken CEO Marc Guldimann. “We just haven’t been able to pin somebody down.”

After publishers, Guldimann wants to talk to retailers about giving discounts to people who agree to be tracked.

Here’s how the DataWall would work: Users show up at a Web site and are asked to either pay money or pay with data. If they elect to pay with data, they agree to be passively tracked for a period of time. Then they proceed past the paywall.

Enliken promises that it will never track personally identifiable information or sensitive topics like medication purchases. What it will do is track opted-in users’ activity across the Web, with a special filter to find interactions with certain brands.

Then Enliken aggregates the data and reports back to publishers: For instance, the sites most visited by their readers, or their most popular brands. That real-time opt-in data will be much higher quality than the stuff you’d normally find on data exchanges, said Guldimann.

But what Enliken is doing requires sophisticated and savvy users who are willing to take a risk. It’s the opposite of the hotly contested “Do Not Track” policies, where users and their browsers would reject any and all data sharing.

“We think as the market gets better educated, people are going to be sticking their hand out saying ‘What’s my share?’” Guldimann said.

Google is in trouble because it told users of the Safari browser, via a help page, that they did not have to worry about being tracked because Safari blocks cookies by default, while at the same time bypassing Safari settings to allow tracking cookies. Google has since deleted those cookies, and says it never collected personal information.

This is the largest FTC penalty ever for violation of one of its orders — though in tech terms, it’s just a generous Series B funding round or so.

It was decided by a vote of 4-1, with Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch dissenting on the grounds that the FTC should not have accepted Google’s denial of liability.

Rosch, instead, believes that Google is in contempt of the 2011 agreement. “This is Google’s second bite at the apple,” he wrote.

If Google is being fined $22.5 million, Rosch argues, the company should not be permitted to deny liability.

The other commissioners replied, “With a company of Google’s size, almost any penalty can be dismissed as insufficient.” But because the issue didn’t exist for very long, and Google didn’t make money from it, a penalty serves as sufficient warning, they argued.

The most interesting sideshow of the case was that the fact that the FTC was planning to fine Google had been leaked out in bits and pieces over the past five months. So, even though the FTC is not extracting an enormous fine, the fire over the issue has been stoked in the press continuously.

The FTC also posted today a more technical description of what Google did to bypass Safari’s settings.

Here’s what happened: Despite having that help page up saying that Safari wasn’t tracking users, “for several months in 2011 and 2012,” Google circumvented Safari settings to place a temporary cookie from DoubleClick. This was in part to set up those little +1 social advertising buttons on its ads for users.

And here’s the crux: “Because of the particular operation of the Safari browser, that initial temporary cookie opened the door to all cookies from the DoubleClick domain, including the Google advertising tracking cookie that Google had represented would be blocked from Safari browsers.”

But that’s not actually the crux, because the specific issue that the FTC is mad about is that Google had up the incorrect help page the whole time. This misrepresentation is exactly what Google promised it wouldn’t do in 2011.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said the penalty is meant to send a message that “No matter how big or small, all companies must abide by FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or they will end up paying many times what it would have cost to comply in the first place.”

What’s interesting is that the fine hasn’t even been levied yet, but the process has played out very much in public.

Literally every step of the process has been leaked. In March, The Wall Street Journal — which first brought the issue to light – reported that regulators were looking into the matter. In April, the San Jose Mercury News reported that Google was likely to be fined by the FTC. Then, in July, it came out that a settlement of $22.5 million was near. Yesterday, Reuters said members of the FTC had voted to approve the settlement, and it would come out in days.

While neither the FTC or Google is admitting to any leaks, Google seems to have gotten so fed up with the coverage that it has made the rather unusual move of commenting specifically on the ongoing case.

The company now tells any reporter who asks, “The FTC is focused on a 2009 help center page published more than two years before our consent decree, and a year before Apple changed its cookie-handling policy. We have now changed that page and taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers.”

Translation: The only issue they are pinning on us is that a help page was out of date. Please stop using scary words like “bypass” and “tracking.”

The FTC, meanwhile, says it does not comment on ongoing cases.

The “consent decree” Google is talking about is the agreement it made with the FTC over Google Buzz in 2011, in which it promised not to mislead users on privacy for 20 years, or else face consequences. So the FTC is upset that this outdated help page said one thing, while Google was doing something else (the specifics have to do with Google figuring out a trick to put little personalized “+1” buttons on ads).

The context for this is that Google faces all sorts of international regulatory scrutiny over various privacy incidents, some of them “inadvertent,” and some of them more complicated.

But as the Safari case moves behind (partially) closed doors to the court of public opinion, some stakes are very high and others are very low. While $22.5 million is small change in Google bucks, it would be the largest fine the FTC has exacted on a single company.

Plus, it doesn’t appear that Google will have to admit any wrongdoing. That might seem strange, but it’s actually standard practice. The Buzz agreement was the same way. The FTC has made a practice of securing no-fault settlements, something that has recently been contested in court for not being strong enough to defend consumers.

Given that Google won’t have to admit fault or pay a significant fine, the consistent press coverage of the company’s privacy slip-ups is probably the worst repercussion of the whole incident.

These privacy incursions are bound to keep happening, considering just how much data companies like Google have about all of us, and how complex their organizations have become.

So is this what the future of tech regulation looks like? Company gets in trouble, agrees to be audited but doesn’t admit fault, and then for years, regulators extract ticky-tacky fines over “inadvertent” errors? And then the cycle repeats itself.

Onstage at D10 Thursday, FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz argued that it is, and that its broad prohibition against “unfair and deceptive acts or practices” gives it a decent enough paddle with which to smack Google, Facebook and other companies that need to be reminded that our personal information is also our property. Also top of mind during today’s interview: Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) patent-licensing obligations, and whether a Do Not Track policy for third-party cookies is good for business or not.

Below, video highlights from the session:

Full D10 Conference Coverage

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120531/ftc-chairman-jon-leibowitz-on-privacy-do-not-track-facebook-and-google-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120517/twitter-tailors-your-who-to-follow-list-but-only-if-you-want-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20120517/twitter-tailors-your-who-to-follow-list-but-only-if-you-want-it/#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 23:18:38 +0000 Mike Isaac http://allthingsd.com/?p=209621 Twitter began rolling out tailored suggestions for users to follow on Thursday, aiming to give Twitter newcomers better direction in learning how to navigate the somewhat abstruse microblogging platform. The suggestions stem from a tracking cookie Twitter sends to new users, allowing the company to see sites visited within the past 10 days. Twitter then uses that information to recommend who to follow. Users can also opt out of this service.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120517/twitter-tailors-your-who-to-follow-list-but-only-if-you-want-it/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20120316/google-in-new-privacy-probes/ http://allthingsd.com/20120316/google-in-new-privacy-probes/#comments Fri, 16 Mar 2012 10:30:32 +0000 Julia Angwin http://allthingsd.com/?p=187029 Regulators in the U.S. and European Union are investigating Google Inc. for bypassing the privacy settings of millions of users of Apple Inc.’s Safari Web browser, according to people familiar with the investigations. Google stopped the practice last month after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.

The investigations — which span U.S. federal and state agencies, as well as a pan-European effort led by France — could embroil Google in years of legal battles and result in hefty fines for privacy violations. The Journal in February reported that Google was using special computer code to install tiny tracking files, or “cookies,” on some people’s computers, iPhones and iPads, even if the devices were set to block this kind of tracking.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120316/google-in-new-privacy-probes/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120228/former-dow-jones-digital-boss-gordon-mcleod-lands-at-krux/ http://allthingsd.com/20120228/former-dow-jones-digital-boss-gordon-mcleod-lands-at-krux/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:15:49 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=178602 Gordon McLeod, the former head of Dow Jones’s digital publications, has a new job at an ad tech start-up. He’s now president at Krux, a two-year-old “data management platform” that helps publishers control “cookie” data that tracks Web surfers’ movements. Last fall, Krux raised $11 million in a round led by Accel and IDG. McLeod left News Corp.’s Dow Jones, where he oversaw business operations for multiple sites, including this one, in 2010.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120228/former-dow-jones-digital-boss-gordon-mcleod-lands-at-krux/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120125/social-ad-guys-33across-buy-copypaste-guys-tynt/ http://allthingsd.com/20120125/social-ad-guys-33across-buy-copypaste-guys-tynt/#comments Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:00:35 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=167233 33Across, an ad tech start-up that specializes in social data, has picked up Tynt, the start-up that publishers use to track their content when readers copy and paste their stuff.

It’s an all-stock transaction, and the companies won’t disclose how they are valuing the deal. But the numbers should get out sooner or later, as 33Across plans on raising more money soon, pitching itself as “the largest social and interest graph in the world.”

You have to do some weird mental gymnastics to make that claim work, so ignore it. The combination of the two companies is sort of interesting, though.

Here’s the logic: 33Across makes money by tracking Web users’ social connections, and using the data to serve them targeted ads. Straightforward enough.

Tynt has its own very big data set, which it accumulates by letting publishers use its services for free, while it collects its own information. So, say, the New Yorker can see that you shared a portion of that Mitt Romney/Bain Capital story with your cousin, and Tynt can also keep tabs on where the story migrated around the Web. (Tynt, like lots of ad services, has a small but vocal group of detractors — in this case led by prominent Apple blogger John Gruber, who finds the service “annoying.”)

Put the two together, in theory, and you have an ad tech company that knows a lot about how people interact on the Web, and what sort of stuff they like to read/share (all that stuff is theoretically anonymized, etc.).

The next step, says 33Across CEO Eric Wheeler, will be to approach some of the 500,000 publishers that use Tynt’s service, and offer to sell their ads via a private exchange. That’s the newly popular concept that’s supposed to let publishers sell off some of their unsold inventory without moving it to lowest-common-denominator ad networks.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock/Angela Waye)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120125/social-ad-guys-33across-buy-copypaste-guys-tynt/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120117/google-spends-for-new-consumer-education-campaign/ http://allthingsd.com/20120117/google-spends-for-new-consumer-education-campaign/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:33:22 +0000 Tom Loftus http://allthingsd.com/?p=164433 Google today rolled out a new effort designed to educate consumers on technology terms like “cookies” and “IP addresses” and explain a few things about privacy online.

Google calls its effort “Good to Know,” and it’s a continuation of a campaign that began in Europe in the fall. Beyond the obligatory website, which features how-to videos, the campaign incorporates online and print advertisements in newspapers and magazines nationwide as well as advertisements for straphangers in New York and Washington D.C. subway stations. Google says Good to Know is its largest consumer education campaign. A Google spokesman said the company is spending “tens of millions of dollars.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120117/google-spends-for-new-consumer-education-campaign/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111221/ireland-gives-facebooks-international-privacy-and-data-protection-a-passing-grade/ http://allthingsd.com/20111221/ireland-gives-facebooks-international-privacy-and-data-protection-a-passing-grade/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:36:36 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=155826 The Irish Data Protection Commission today concluded that Facebook has “a positive approach and commitment” to protecting the privacy of its international users, though it did get Facebook to agree to provide further notifications and improve its policies in a few areas.

You might be surprised that what Ireland has to say about regulating Facebook privacy is terribly important — but it actually is. Because Facebook’s international headquarters are in Dublin, this local commission oversees Facebook’s compliance in all regions other than the U.S. and Canada.

Facebook agreed to make changes in time for a follow-up Irish Data Protection Commission audit in July 2012. As presented in a Facebook Europe blog post, they include:

• Creating additional notifications explaining photo tagging using facial recognition (which has been a particularly contentious feature in Europe)
• Reducing data retention and logging for people who are not logged into Facebook (so-called “logged-out cookies” and alleged “shadow profiles” of non-members have been another reason for recent outcry)
• Telling users more about how to control when their information is given to Facebook platform applications

As compared to Facebook’s recent settlement with the American Federal Trade Commission, the Irish audit seems to be about more up-to-date privacy issues (much of the FTC stuff dated back to 2009). The FTC settlement is also a longer-term arrangement, with Facebook agreeing to 20 years of privacy audits. And Mark Zuckerberg didn’t give Ireland a formal apology, admitting to making “a bunch of mistakes.”

(Image copyright Peter Gerken and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons license)

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111221/ireland-gives-facebooks-international-privacy-and-data-protection-a-passing-grade/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110916/ftcs-proposed-changes-to-web-privacy-rules-give-parents-more-control/ http://allthingsd.com/20110916/ftcs-proposed-changes-to-web-privacy-rules-give-parents-more-control/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:00:54 +0000 Emily Steel http://allthingsd.com/?p=121451 The Federal Trade Commission wants to give parents more control over what information websites can collect about their children.

The FTC is proposing changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that include requiring parental consent for websites to collect a broader range of information about children under age 13, including location. They also would require parental permission for a website to use tracking software, known as cookies, to build a profile about a child and monitor children’s online activities for purposes such as targeting ads.

The move marks a major action by federal regulators to bolster privacy protections for Internet users.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110916/ftcs-proposed-changes-to-web-privacy-rules-give-parents-more-control/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110818/latest-in-web-tracking-stealthy-supercookies/ http://allthingsd.com/20110818/latest-in-web-tracking-stealthy-supercookies/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:01:58 +0000 Julia Angwin http://allthingsd.com/?p=111484 Major Web sites such as MSN.com and Hulu.com have been tracking people’s online activities using powerful new methods that are almost impossible for computer users to detect, new research shows.

The new techniques, which are legal, reach beyond the traditional “cookie,” a small file that Web sites routinely install on users’ computers to help track their activities online. Hulu and MSN were installing files known as “supercookies,” which are capable of re-creating users’ profiles after people deleted regular cookies, according to researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110818/latest-in-web-tracking-stealthy-supercookies/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110524/eat-your-cookies-eu-privacy-directive-takes-effect-wednesday/ http://allthingsd.com/20110524/eat-your-cookies-eu-privacy-directive-takes-effect-wednesday/#comments Tue, 24 May 2011 21:28:50 +0000 Liz Gannes http://allthingsd.com/?p=77571 New European Union privacy regulations that require Web sites to get consent from EU users before tracking them around the rest of the Web will go into effect Wednesday. The directive is aimed at cookies used for targeted advertising, and applies to companies operated in any country.

However, many EU countries have yet to create laws based on the directive, which was originally legislated in 2009, and it’s not clear how aggressively various governments will enforce opt-in cookies.

“Confusion and uncertainty” is how Dennis Dayman, chief privacy and security for Eloqua–a marketing automation provider that’s supplying tools to help Web sites offer data capture choices–described the situation. He noted that what makes things even harder is that requirements will vary from country to country.

“Do-Not-Track” laws, which would require options for consumers to opt out of online data collection, are also being discussed in the United States. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) this month proposed the Do-Not-Track Online Act of 2011, which would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission if it passes.

California State Sen. Alan Lowenthal proposed a similar law in California earlier this year. Google, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo and various advertising and retail companies have submitted formal opposition to the California bill, arguing that all four major browsers already offer users options to filter their own Web use.

Image via Flickr user melissacorey.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110524/eat-your-cookies-eu-privacy-directive-takes-effect-wednesday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110124/google-joins-mozilla-with-opt-out-plug-in-for-chrome/ http://allthingsd.com/20110124/google-joins-mozilla-with-opt-out-plug-in-for-chrome/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:04:40 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=2211 Not to be outdone by its rivals at Mozilla, Google released an add-on for its Chrome Web browser that allows users to opt out from ad-tracking cookies.

The move is a response to a call by the Federal Trade Commission for a “do not track” mechanism to let users decide not to allow advertising cookies to track their online movements for the purposes of personalizing the ads they see on the Web.

The Keep My Opt-Outs add-on installs easily enough in Chrome, though a few people who have installed it are complaining of problems with the Chrome browser in comments on the add-on’s Web site.

Given Chrome’s relatively small share of the browser market, on its face this is a marginal move. Google however says there will be more to come. It wants to make its add-on available for other browsers and will share the code with the rest of the world on an open-source basis.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110124/google-joins-mozilla-with-opt-out-plug-in-for-chrome/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110107/live-microsoft-browser-boss-dean-hachamovitch-at-dces/ http://allthingsd.com/20110107/live-microsoft-browser-boss-dean-hachamovitch-at-dces/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:28:59 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=27756

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser is still the world’s most popular, but its dominance is being steadily eroded by competition from Mozilla, Google and Apple. Can a new, aggressive approach to privacy change that? Can Microsoft really protect users from tracking across the Web–and do users really care?

Dean Hachamovitch, who oversees IE for Microsoft as a corporate VP, gives Walt Mossberg an update on the browser wars.

Greetings! We’ll be starting shortly. If you were in the room right now with our select crowd, you would have just heard some Aerosmith. And now, one of my favorite Van Morrison songs : “Jackie Wilson Said.” Also, we’re not using the classic red D interview chairs for this one. Going with a kind of teal blue. Now you know!

Some Isley Brothers now.

Some Elvis Costello. Don’t know this one, though.

And…here’s Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.

Kara is wearing something that might have been bedazzled. Walt’s wearing Waltwear.

An update on the state of the ATD empire, which is getting much bigger.

Walt brings on Dean Hachamovitch.

Dean, by the way, is wearing a black long-sleeve shirt that says “private” in big white letters. Hope someone asks him about it.

Ah, and Dean has a “private” shirt for Walt, too. We’ll get to privacy in a bit, it seems.

DEAN: Working on IE 9, in beta, downloaded over 20 million times. Most important is its performance. It’s amazingly fast. Also, it blurs the boundary between Web sites and apps. And also, some talk about privacy.

WALT: Okay, that was a nice ad. But please talk about reports that you’ve been eclipsed in Europe by Firefox.

DEAN: Yes, we used to have 90 percent market share back in the ’90s. But now we look at how many people choose to use our most recent versions. “We are delighted that IE 6 market share is going down. We are delighted that IE 7 market share is going down.”

DEAN: And bear in mind how much the Internet is growing. “There are a lot of different factors. It’s a very complex situation.”

WALT: Okay, on to privacy. Safari used to have some kind of privacy feature, but that’s old. Then in IE 8, you introduced a new feature, not by default, which tried to extend that protection to other sites on the Web you traveled to.

DEAN: You were describing “over the shoulder privacy.” But we’re also concerned about tracking. There are two kinds of tracking: “Expected tracking” and “creepy stalking.”

Pandora and Amazon are expected tracking. You want them to know what you’re doing. But the important thing is that you have visibility and control, and you get benefits.

For instance, when I go to Amazon, they know that I bought Spice Girls and Fergie, and they tell me other stuff I should get.

WALT: Some of that tracking isn’t sophisticated enough.

DEAN: Anyway, creepy stalking is bad. Because consumers aren’t aware of what’s going on, and they don’t have control of it.

WALT: We don’t allow slides at our conferences usually, but we’re going to make an exception. Please show us some slides!

Dean is showing people a monitor that shows you what cookies were attached to a certain NPR page, which includes tracking info that comes from Facebook integration.

Now a Fox News page with similar info.

A reminder that cookies, by the way, aren’t the only tracking info involved here. Also pixels, etc.

But even once you root around and look at the pixels and tracking info, you might not really understand what you’re looking at or who is behind them.

WALT: Microsoft is a big Internet advertiser and publisher. Don’t you do some of this stuff?

DEAN: Yes, and in addition to us and Google, etc, there is an amazing ecosystem of information brokers. There’s a huge industry around this.

WALT: So what’s coming?

DEAN: With the new rev of IE 9, first quarter of 2011, you’ll be able to “go to a Web page, click on a button and you’ll be protected from tracking.” Any Web page can do this.

It will block content on that page. It will be an open publishing platform.

WALT: Why would a publisher want to do this? They have a legitmate need to want to know things about you, to serve you better ads, right?

DEAN: We have a lot of interest from a lot of different organizations that want to make lists. Publishers, government agencies, consumer advocacy, etc.

WALT: So, I have to download a list from someone I trust to make this work. Will you maintain this list?

DEAN: No. People will find these lists the same way that they find other things on the Web they like. From Facebook, or friends, or wherever.

We think it’s important to have people exercise judgment in making these lists. The most important thing is that you go off to the Web and find one you have confidence in.

WALT: But why do I have to hope that I go to sites that have these buttons?

WALT and DEAN are trying to explain how the list and button combination will work. Frankly, I’m confused. We’ll have to circle back to this.

WALT: A cynical journalist might suggest that you’re embracing privacy and wearing a shirt because Firefox et al are eating your lunch.

DEAN: Paying Windows customers want a great experience that includes privacy, including through their browser. But another way to view people who use browsers is that they’re objects to be boxed and sold. We don’t believe that. We believe Windows customers should have a great experience with their browser.

WALT: As opposed to?

DEAN: Well, Chrome, for instance, is funded by advertising.

WALT: So is The Wall Street Journal.

DEAN: I think advertising is great. But be careful about connecting advertising with tracking. We have advertising customers, and we want them to be delighted. And we have Windows customers, and we want them to be delighted. We have a unique position on this that gives us an opporunity to lead.

WALT: All the other browsers have a privacy mode.

DEAN: But that’s for “over the shoulder” privacy, not tracking.

WALT: Some of this tracking stuff is very hard to block. Can you really protect a user from all of it?

DEAN: Good question. Flash, for instance, enables tracking “Flash cookies” and they’re inherent in Flash. Only way to turn them off is to turn Flash off.

WALT: So this won’t block Flash cookies?

DEAN: It will if you tell it to.

WALT: But that’s pretty extreme.

DEAN: Yes. We’re touching on the ambiguity to the consumer about what actually is important and worthwhile tracking, and what isn’t.

We want to help consumers make progress being in control, but it’s a work in progress. It’s happening in Berkeley and in Brussels.

WALT: Let’s switch gears. Some people, not mainstream people, are debating whether the future of entertainment and progress and productivity will be on the browser and in the cloud. Google is pushing that via Chrome OS, and they also have Android apps that store local cloud on the device. Where do you come down on that?

DEAN: It’s a great case of “and”–you’ll have local apps and cloud versions. Like with Office mail, etc. We’re doing work on speed and safety so you can feel more comfortable in the cloud. “I think it’s the best of both worlds.”

WALT: So not a religious issue? Just practicality?

DEAN: Yes.

Questions and Answers

Q: What do you think of what the FTC says about privacy?

DEAN: The paper they put out in December is a good framework. And they’ve responded positively to what we’ve put out. They’re in favor of self-regulation, and we’re eager to work with them. I’ve had conversations with them, and what they say makes sense.

WALT: You’ve been talking to competitors about working together on this?

DEAN: We’ve been talking across the industry.

Q: Who is supposed to make banking, etc., more secure? This isn’t just about someone saying something on Facebook, but opening up the wrong window and having your bank account drained.

DEAN: We take it very seriously. “Security is an industry issue. I have to say it that way, because anything that we can talk about here has multiple parties involved.” if your Facebook is hacked, was it using your banking password?

Q: I’m talking about a national security issue.

DEAN: There’s a lot of working going on within the industry, working with law enformecement, to make things more secure.

WALT: But since you have the biggest market share, there’s a lot of responsibility on you. What do you do about that?

DEAN: Well, one thing we do is put out updates every eight weeks, because things change.

But really, “the best thing you can do to remain secure is to keep all your bits updated….That would make such a difference.”

Q: Firefox has plug-ins like AdBlock, that let you block ads. They seem to be effective at blocking things like beacons, too. Are they effective and can you do something analogous?

DEAN: Add-ins require installation, etc. You need a list, too. But we’re building that functionality into IE, so you don’t need to download anything else. We’re also working with people who make lists for AdBlock Plus, and they’re eager to work with IE 9 as well.

WALT: But AdBlock blocks ads, too. You’re not going to do that, right?

DEAN: It comes down to the list. If a list author lists sites that involve ads, then they’ll go away, too.

WALT: So you could surf the Web without seeing ads?

DEAN: It depends on the list.

WALT: I do think ads are good, by the way. [Me too!]

DEAN: Right. “Ads are great!”

But this is one of the reasons the ad industry wants to create lists for this. So they can distinguish tracking from nontracking.

Q: You’ve been talking about desktop browsers. Will these features come to mobile as well?

DEAN: “We’ll be talking about our mobile browser very soon, and I’ll just smile, and you can infer from that.”

Q: How much more value does tracking really add to advertising?

DEAN: Hard for me to answer that. Maybe the next time you have one of these things, you could have someone from the ad industry.

WALT: Good idea.

And we’re done.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110107/live-microsoft-browser-boss-dean-hachamovitch-at-dces/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101201/evercookies-and-fingerprinting-are-anti-fraud-tools-good-for-ads-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20101201/evercookies-and-fingerprinting-are-anti-fraud-tools-good-for-ads-2/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 20:23:34 +0000 Jennifer Valentino-DeVries http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33336 Techniques like “evercookies” and “device fingerprinting” are new and controversial in the online ad industry, but they’re widely used by firms that seek to catch cyber criminals.

Criminals, who have a powerful incentive to remain anonymous, learned long ago to thwart cookies–small text files associated with their Web browser. So anti-fraud companies began searching for more persistent identifiers.

Some firms hide other small files in several places on a person’s machine. The technology is known as a “supercookie” or “evercookie,” a term popularized by programmer Samy Kamkar this fall when he created a program that stores more than 10 such identifiers.

One anti-fraud company, California-based ThreatMetrix Inc., touts its “evercookie” approach in detecting criminals. The company does not disclose every place that it stores identifiers but says it uses browser cookies, files associated with Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash player and local storage in HTML5, the newest version of the language used to code Web pages, said ThreatMetrix CEO Reed Taussig.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101201/evercookies-and-fingerprinting-are-anti-fraud-tools-good-for-ads-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101201/a-new-type-of-tracking-akamais-pixel-free-technology/ http://allthingsd.com/20101201/a-new-type-of-tracking-akamais-pixel-free-technology/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:00:24 +0000 Julia Angwin http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33317 Akamai Technologies Inc., the large Web infrastructure provider, is promoting a new tracking technique it calls “pixel-free” technology.

Pixels are bits of software that tracking companies install on Web pages to monitor user behavior. These pixels, also known as “beacons” and “tags,” can install cookies–or small tracking files–on a user’s machine, or they can simply send information about a user’s behavior to a tracking company.

However, tracking has become so pervasive that some Web publishers are increasingly worried that the pixels on their pages are slowing down the performance of their site. Several companies have cropped up to help companies manage all the pixels on their pages.

Akamai’s solution to the pixel problem is unique. Akamai’s core business is to store copies of popular websites and applications on its computer servers around the world and speed delivery of this information.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101201/a-new-type-of-tracking-akamais-pixel-free-technology/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101124/shunned-profiling-technology-on-the-verge-of-comeback/ http://allthingsd.com/20101124/shunned-profiling-technology-on-the-verge-of-comeback/#comments Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:00:49 +0000 Steve Stecklow and Paul Sonne http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=33131 One of the most potentially intrusive technologies for profiling and targeting Internet users with ads is on the verge of a comeback, two years after an outcry by privacy advocates in the U.S. and Britain appeared to kill it.

The technology, known as “deep packet inspection,” is capable of reading and analyzing the “packets” of data traveling across the Internet. It can be far more powerful than “cookies” and other techniques commonly used to track people online because it can be used to monitor all online activity, not just Web browsing. Spy agencies use the technology for surveillance.

Now, two U.S. companies, Kindsight Inc. and Phorm Inc., are pitching deep packet inspection services as a way for Internet service providers to claim a share of the lucrative online ad market.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101124/shunned-profiling-technology-on-the-verge-of-comeback/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101122/eu-chews-on-web-cookies/ http://allthingsd.com/20101122/eu-chews-on-web-cookies/#comments Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:00:27 +0000 Paul Sonne and John W. Miller http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=32919 Europe’s effort to regulate online “cookies” is crumbling, exposing how tough it is to curb the practice of tracking Internet users’ movements on the Web.

Seeking to be a leader in protecting online privacy, the European Union last year passed a law requiring companies to obtain consent from Web users when tracking files such as cookies are placed on users’ computers. Enactment awaits action by member countries.
Now, Internet companies, advertisers, lawmakers, privacy advocates and EU member nations can’t agree on the law’s meaning. Is it sufficient if users agree to cookies when setting up Web browsers? Is an industry-backed plan acceptable that would let users see—and opt out of—data collected about them? Must placing cookies on a machine depend on the user checking a box each time?

The answers are mired in bickering.
“We’re now in a sort of no man’s land,” says Bridget Treacy, head of the U.K. privacy practice at law firm Hunton & Williams LLP.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101122/eu-chews-on-web-cookies/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101018/mark-cuban-invests-in-device-tracking-firm/ http://allthingsd.com/20101018/mark-cuban-invests-in-device-tracking-firm/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:02:56 +0000 Julia Angwin http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=31195 Billionaire investor Mark Cuban is among investors who have poured $5 million into startup BlueCava, which aims to develop unique IDs for computers, mobile phones and other devices.

BlueCava hopes that its device identification system may eventually replace online tracking tools such as cookies. Instead, BlueCava hopes companies will track users based on their device IDs. Consumers will be able to visit BlueCava to see how they are being tracked and to choose not to be tracked.

“We represent a brand new way to disclose to consumers how they can receive targeted advertising,” said BlueCava Chief Executive David Norris. “Some people view us as the next generation of technology that will extend beyond what cookies can do.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101018/mark-cuban-invests-in-device-tracking-firm/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100929/web-analysts-push-for-privacy-standards/ http://allthingsd.com/20100929/web-analysts-push-for-privacy-standards/#comments Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:39:31 +0000 Jennifer Valentino-DeVries http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=30445 As Web tracking faces growing regulatory and public scrutiny, people who analyze online data for a living are confronting questions about their industry.

The Wall Street Journal’s What They Know series has documented the cutting-edge uses of the tracking technology used to create profiles of consumers’ habits. The 50 most popular U.S. websites installed 64 tracking files on average, the Journal study found.

Many of these are of the type used to develop profiles of users for behaviorally targeted advertising, but there can be other uses for such files.

Many sites use Web-analytics programs, for example, to evaluate the traffic coming to their own pages. Cookies from these programs can come from the site itself, in which case they are known as first-party cookies, or from another service, in which case they’re called third-party cookies. Such services are generally separate from ad networks, but there are no rules governing the sharing of such data.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100929/web-analysts-push-for-privacy-standards/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100920/cookies-cause-bitter-backlash/ http://allthingsd.com/20100920/cookies-cause-bitter-backlash/#comments Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:00:58 +0000 Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Emily Steel http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=30007 Tools that track users’ whereabouts on the Web are facing increased regulatory and public scrutiny and prompting a flurry of legal challenges.

Since July, at least six suits have been filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against websites and companies that create advertising technology, accusing them of installing online-tracking tools that are so surreptitious that they essentially hack into users’ machines without their knowledge. All of the suits seek class-action status and accuse companies of violating the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and other laws against deceptive practices.

In 2001 and 2003, courts ruled that websites could place small text files called “cookies” on machines. Cookies allow sites to remember users, so they don’t have to log in user information on each visit. But they can also be used to track users across websites, compiling a profile of a user’s browsing interests.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100920/cookies-cause-bitter-backlash/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100920/how-to-protect-your-childs-privacy-online/ http://allthingsd.com/20100920/how-to-protect-your-childs-privacy-online/#comments Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:00:23 +0000 Jennifer Valentino-DeVries http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=29999 Websites popular among children and teens place more tracking technologies on users’ computers than do the top websites aimed at adults, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. But parents can take steps to limit their children’s exposure.

Web-browsing activity is tracked by “cookies,” “beacons” and “Flash cookies,” small computer files or software programs installed on a computer when a user visits some Web pages. Some are useful. But others are used by companies to track users from site to site and build profiles of their online activities.

All Internet users, whether adults or children, can limit tracking by adjusting settings on Web browsers and Adobe Systems Inc.’s (ADBE) popular Flash program. These settings can delete cookies and limit what types of cookies may be placed on the computer. For additional protection, parents also can install small programs, called “add-ons,” to a child’s browser. And parents can prevent children from seeing behaviorally targeted ads through tools provided by the ad networks.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100920/how-to-protect-your-childs-privacy-online/feed/ 0