Report: Social Networking Users are Being Tracked
Posted 08/25/09 at 06:05:46 PM by Paul Lilly
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If you're concerned about privacy, it might not be enough to hide your profile or limit who can view your personal information, a new report suggests. That's because social networking sites are sharing your personal info with tracking sites, according to the report.
"When you sign up with a social networking site, you are assigned a unique identifier," says Craig Wills, professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). "We found that when social networking sites pass information to tracking sites about your activities, they often include this unique identifier. So now a tracking site not only has a profile of your web browsing activities, it can link that profile to the personal information you post on the social networking site."
The study specifically points out Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter -- three of the most popular social networking sites on the planet -- as being guilty of leaking information. Using your unique identifier, a tracking site could then learn all kinds of things about you, including your name, address, email addy, gender, date of birth, what school you attend, where you work, and tons more.
But is it much ado about nothing? Only the tracking sites know for sure, and Wills admits that researchers have no idea what these sites do with the info, if anything at all.
It's rather sad.
Submitted by tri8gman on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 10:58pm
People are oblivious to the ramifications of information, as well as the amount of connectivity they either have or are capable of.
Case in point is the majority of (very active) people in social networking: teenagers. Teens are quick to pick up something if it's easy enough, but are poor at judging the ramifications of it. I had a bit of a personal experience at one point with this "lack of foresight" when I recieved an "image" of someone from someone I knew who is a teen. They were spreading this image around as a sort of revenge.
"TAKE THIS PROGRAM CALLED FILE SHREDDER AND TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO USE IT ON THAT FILE. Are you a [expletive] idiot?"
Need I say more?
Personally, I deleted my MySpace and never gave in to the pleads to move to Facebook. I don't use social networking.
Be tracked, or being hacked?
Submitted by Tristantree on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 10:31pm
It's really a bad news. Watch out your privacy data just like keep a eye on your wallet.
This can protect you from spyware, virus, malware...
Security Shield 2009
http://www.111download.com/product/security-shield-2009-total-internet-security.html
Key Features :
Virus, Spyware and Adware Protection;Personal Firewall;Automatic Daily Updates;Parental Control;Root-Kit Detection;Spam Filter.
Submitted by bathtbgin on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 5:34am
It probably goes without saying, but the above post is spam and you should not download the software it is advertising.
Submitted by Queenof1 on Wed, 08/26/2009 - 10:52am
thx for the warning. One of the mods should prolly remove it.
Captain Obvious on Social
Submitted by I Jedi on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 5:21pm
Captain Obvious on Social Networking
Report: Social Networking Users are Being Tracked
Submitted by dankers on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 4:46pm
No shit.
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