Did you know?
Have you ever read a privacy statement on a corporate web site? It usually says that they won't sell your information to third parties.
Something I have noticed increasingly frequently ... OFTEN THESE POLICIES SAY SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT OF "WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHANGE THE POLICY AT ANY TIME WITHOUT NOTICE".
What does this mean? It means that at any given time they could decide to sell your information ... your age, demographics, etc.
Or they may say they won't sell the information (but they specifically don't mention that they intend to RENT your information).
And that's if they honor their policy at all ... I found this article very surprising by the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Jun30.html
I will provide some examples of companies that collect your personal information BIG TIME.
1) Classmates.com
2) Most "Family tree maker" web sites
3) Free test web sites, like free iq sites, free "test your knowledge" sites, etc. etc.
I just wanted to point this out because of the TCPA related discussion in the other thread.
What opened my eyes to all of this? One day someone I know was using a "family tree maker web site" like genealogy.com or something like and I was watching and SHOCKED at what I saw. This site wanted ages and hobbies of everyone in this guy's family tree and email addresses (and maybe more) and as I was pondering this while he was entering in information it hit me like a locomotive and I told him "Hold on, this doesn't seem right. Why do they care if your uncle likes skiing? They shouldn't need that to make a family tree."
Classmates.com is the same too.
Watch out!
Oh, one last tip .... Windows Media Player allows sites to tracking you as an individual unless you uncheck that box in preferences (and I doubt hardly anyone reading this even is aware of that box). The box is checked by default!! Oh, and it connects to the internet all the freaking time.
And that's not all, Macromedia Flash Player tracks you as an individual too unless you turn that feature off in Flash Player Preferences ... and you will find that it is almost impossible to even figure out how to go to Preferences in Flash Player. I managed to turn the individual tracking off but I had to research it news groups how to get to preferences.
Real Player works the same way too. So all of this time that you thought you were browsing the 'net in privacy, Macromedia has been spying on all of your visits (notice how Flash advertising is everywhere now) ... in a manner far more effective than cookies.
My point is that numerous companies are willing to sell you out to make a buck. Macromedia is into this big time. So is Microsoft (ever notice how invalid URL's in Internet Explorer take you to a MSN search page ... think that they aren't keeping track of that data by IP?)
Login
FAQ
Search
Especially on-line.
