I fail to see why sending the referer is a privacy concern. Following that logic, every datapoint is a privacy concern. From screen resolution to mouse movement, everything can be abused to build profiles. Referer headers have a host of valid usecases but if you are opposed any data being shared you'll probably dismiss all of them.
Yes, every data point is a privacy concern.
I think it's a reasonable login when we're talking about data points sent implicitly. In my ideal world the website just gets the resource identifier, and browser cares for the rest.
From the article:
>> The Zeus platform monitors contextual data such as ... what URL they have used to arrive there ... The publisher will then match that data to its existing audience data pools ... to create assumptions on what that news user’s consumption intent will be. The technology uses machine learning to decipher the patterns.
They are explicitly stating they use Referrer-like data to track users.
To me, "track user" means persistently ID one person. This sounds more like inferring anonymous interest, like inferring that someone arriving from ESPN.com might be interested in your sports section.
If that person comes back tomorrow from The Financial Times, you might infer that they are interested in the economy.
But without cookies, I don't see how you would recognize that visit as the same person as yesterday and integrate the sports and economy interests into a persistent profile. Each visit would be self-contained, which doesn't fit my definition of "tracking."
If you gather enough of that "anonymous" data, and particularly if you combine it with other data sets (as they claim they are intending to do), then it's not that hard to recognize individuals based on their usage patterns and metadata.
But that premise is well-known to be in conflict with established reality. Identifying specific individuals from these sorts of data points is famously, disturbingly easy to do. People even do it just for fun, almost like it were an Advent of Code challenge. That's the reason why there will never be another Netflix Prize.
well I don't really expect the newspaper that I read to watch me walk from my place of work to the parking lot. In fact I don't want them to watch me at all because I don't expect newspapers to be in the surveillance business.
When I buy a newspaper at a store the guy behind the counter doesn't follow me three blocks to figure out how I drink my coffee at the coffeeshop, yet curiously enough this is how the internet works, everyhwere
But if you keep returning to the same news stand, he'll probably reach for the newspaper you like when he sees you coming. This is the equivalent of what the Washington Post does now. Not following you to the coffeeshop like the ad tech of today.
Do you know what I'd really like to see? A sort of frame in frame of what the algorithm sees that tracks me while reading a Wapo article, directly shown to the reader. It'd be interesting to see how people would react if they were aware of how exactly they're being followed around and analysed.
Where in the article do you see that WaPo does this? I was under the impression that this is WaPo-only data, collected by WaPo and used by WaPo. Too sell advertising space, yes. But that's because you're not paying them directly.
>Do you know what I'd really like to see? A sort of frame in frame of what the algorithm sees that tracks me while reading a Wapo article, directly shown to the reader. It'd be interesting to see how people would react if they were aware of how exactly they're being followed around and analysed.
I would love that too, but as long as it doesn't explicitly mention them by name I guess people don't care. Look at Facebook, here people never had any problem sharing really private information in exchange for free information and entertainment.
No ads or tracking are disabled for subscribers. Paying them directly makes no difference.
I should not be subjected to spying just because most of my neighbors don't mind being spied on.
Yes, this.
33 bits.
Context: There are about 2^33 people on earth, so it takes roughly 33 bits of information to identify a single person.
(In practice, it's probably slightly more bits because not all bits carry unique information.)
>"Anonymity in real life is much different than anonymity in the lab, and most people are content to be “one in a million” even if they cannot be “one in 6.7 billion.” In any data set, highly unique individuals (i.e. the outliers) may stand out, much like today’s celebrities do not enjoy the same level of anonymity as the average citizen. However, the fact that some individuals may be identified in a particular data set does not mean that any (or all) individuals may be identified in the data set."
That's correct. I want none of these available without my explicit consent.
What would you think if all stores took every measurement they could about you without disclosing it and eventually justified it by saying "how else would I know you're not a thief"?
But it does reveal information that is none of the website's business.
> It's the store-equivalent of asking "Where did you learn about us?"
No, it's not. Actually asking that question would be the equivalent. What this is is surveillance.
I've seen people that insist that using facial recognition is not different from what humans are doing naturally, now done also with electronics. We can agree the implications are different.
You sell the "abuse" as defense for a shocking crime.
Webmasters who are collecting data about me or my machines (excluding the data about my direct use of their site) without my permission are not "innocent webmasters".
There are dozens of real life situations where covertly collecting such data would be considered completely unacceptable and yet my comment arguing this was still substantially downvoted.
But I guess my point is being in a technically literate community makes no difference when it comes to making a buck. Once one agrees to take a "not an outrageous amount" of private data for a bit of money, they'll agree to take an outrageous amount for outrageous money. And I think this is a perfectly accurate explanation for what FB, Google, [you name it] are doing.
"as it is in many cases now due to https"
<meta name="referrer" content="no-referrer" />
Referrer-Policy: no-referrer