I spotted a disturbing headline which reminded me to repost a recent series about online privacy in the Wall Street Journal.
Suit alleges Disney, other top sites spied on users – CNET News
A lawsuit filed in federal court last week alleges that a group of
well-known Web sites, including those owned by Disney, Warner Bros.
Records, and Demand Media, broke the law by secretly tracking the Web
movements of their users, including children.…
Among the laws that were allegedly violated by Clearspring and the other
defendants are the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, California's Computer
Crime law, and that state's Invasion of Privacy Act.
(CNET uses trackers themselves. Using the Firefox plugin Ghostery, we see that they monitor using Twitmeme, Comscore Beacon, Revenue Science, Yahoo Buzz, Facebook Connect, Google Analytics, and Chartbeat to monitor your surfing)
The article above references a multi-part series I highly recommend you read if you care about your online privacy (just for the record, the Wall Street Journal uses the following trackers: Facebook Connect, MSN Ads, Chartbeat, Peer39, Fox Audience Metrics, Google Analytics, Omniture, WoprdPress Stats.
CAUCE uses Google Analytics and Bit.ly, and Typepad, where we are hosted, inserts Quancast tracking into our posts.).
The New Gold Mine: Your Personal Information & Tracking Data Online – WSJ.com
How to Outsmart Tracking Cookies on the Web – WSJ.com
What They Know About You – Personal Information Tracked Online – WSJ.com
