Ghostery Also Helps the Ad Industry | Hacker News Reader

Ghostery Also Helps the Ad Industry

technologyreview.com

> "Meyer also says that Ghostery users are presented with clear disclosures about how the company uses their data if they opt in."

Really? Here's the text you see by default:

>"Help support Ghostery by sending anonymous statistical data back to Ghostery HQ.

> When you enable Ghostrank™, Ghostery collects anonymous data about the trackers you've encountered and the sites on which they were placed. This data is about tracking elements and the webpages on which they are found, not you or your browsing habits. >...See more"

From this explanation it's unclear what Ghostery is doing. It makes it sound like there's no data being collected from you, only from the sites. Even the "see more" text only hints at the data's use, and you have to click through from that to get the full story. The FAQ is very carefully worded in terms of what they do/don't say and how it's phrased to sound as non-threatening as possible, and you have to read between the lines:

https://www.ghostery.com/en/faq

It seems to me that Evidon is intentionally obscuring their use of the data, and users who opt in probably don't know what their data is being used for.

I think you're making this out to be something it's not. I don't see how Evidon is under any obligation to explain exactly what analyses they perform on the data or what the companies they sell it to do with it. They would be divulging their own trade secrets if they did, which is ludicrous to demand of them.

In fact, they're more forthcoming about what they collect than the vast majority of companies who sell data. They list every piece of information collected right in the FAQ, and they discuss it in depth in a blog post linked to from the FAQ.

https://purplebox.ghostery.com/post/1016023438

The reality is that Ghostrank is opt-in functionality. If you don't like it or are confused by the verbiage, then don't turn it on. If you're still paranoid, don't use Ghostery at all. But don't pretend that they're being unclear, disingenuous, or nefarious just because you had to click your mouse button twice to find the information.

>I don't see how Evidon is under any obligation to explain exactly what analyses they perform on the data or what the companies they sell it to do with it.

Given that Ghostery provides a service that blocks companies tracking data, it has every obligation to explain why it's Ghostrank program is any different from the very thing you are expecting them to protect you from.

Otherwise, it is like a sugar substitute that makes you fat anyways. Theoretically there is a legitimate use case (insulin dependent patients) but for their average customer (people who want to loose weight) it is borderline fraud.

Its explained in many places, such as our website, our FAQ, our support board, all the store listings, and finally in the extension itself.

Ghostrank is not a tracking service of the user, its a way to measure the ecosystem of trackers in the webbernets.

> It makes it sound like there's no data being collected from you, only from the sites.

And when you click through, that's exactly what they say they do. What they list under "See more" is an accurate summary. Of course they could be lying, but I find your claim of them intentionally obscuring their use of the data unfounded.

https://purplebox.ghostery.com/post/1016023438

No one is intentionally obscuring anything. If you have a better idea of how to explain what we do, by all means, please tell me and I shall make it happen.

What happens is straight forward tho. Ghostery collects tracker data as you browse and sends it to us if you've allowed us to collect the data by enabling Ghostrank.

We take the data in, strip it of anything that may point it back to any user and sell it in packages to anyone interested in these reports. Heres what some of the reports purchased from us looks like: https://purplebox.ghostery.com/misc/trackermap/2.html or https://purplebox.ghostery.com/misc/trackermap/5.html

Isn't that just what the article says they use it for? What part of your browsing habits to they sell?

>“This is not a scheme,” says Scott Meyer, Evidon’s cofounder and CEO and formerly a senior figure in the New York Times Company’s online operations, when asked about that dual role. He says, "There is no conflict in offering a tool that helps users hide from the ad industry while also helping that same industry."

As somebody use uses adblockers to help reduce my online footprint, I find this discomforting.

How do either of the services they provide increase your footprint?

When I'm attempting to create no footprint (which is impossible I know), making any footprint period is annoying. And knowing a tool that is implemented and advertised to prevent making said footprint is just making one somewhere else is misleading.

I'm not sure how TR got "GhostRank" enabled without the user seeing the prompt, because every time I've installed Ghostery, it's been an opt-in checkbox right at the beginning of setup.

It's opt-in/disabled by default. What's the problem?

It exists.

Well, you are already using one of the best tools to keep your online footprint to a minimum, and it plainly asks you if you want to contribute data. This is an option and its off by default.

While I understand that having an ad company behind a piece of software like this might be discomforting, I think an article like this being posted on site with ~10 trackers/analytics/ad tools/"social" plugins is equally discomforting. Or not one mention of "GhostRank". Plus, the option is off by default (something that isn't 100% clear of the article either), I'd like Mr. Simonite to have a look at all the options of information snooping present in mobile devices or Windows 8. Just the number of them, how clear the information is and which of them are disabled by default. Oh well...

Disconnect is a great open source alternative to Ghostery: https://disconnect.me/

It also appears to lag Ghostery and Adblock in efficacy [1]. Granted, AreWePrivateYet is "presented by Ghostery." But Ghostery does not necessarily show up at the top of the list every month (see November 2013). AreWePrivateYet also uses a Stanford study's methodology [2] for its open-source model [3].

Update: Ghostery appears to outperform Disconnect even when both are put in "block all trackers" mode [4].

[1] http://www.areweprivateyet.com

[2] http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2011/09/tracking-trackers-...

[3] https://github.com/ghostery/areweprivateyet

[4] https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Comparative-...

Ghostery’s results are (surprise) quite biased: http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1kagfu/which_privac...

My results are not biased:

https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Comparative-...

Ghostery does a better job than Disconnect.

Not true. You’re changing Ghostery’s default settings but not changing Disconnect’s default settings.

For none of the extensions measured I had to go out of my way to set them in block all mode (mine is definitely still geeky compared to others -- it's more suited for the NoScript/RequestPolicy crowd).

I just re-installed all of them, and now I find they are all easier than ever to set up at install time. I had to tamper with Disconnect defaults months ago when I installed it, just like Ghostery and ABP. I appreciate it's no longer required.

If I adopt your arbitrary rule it would be pointless to do comparative measurements of privacy protecting power. I rather click once on a button at install time in a wizard (ABP, Ghostery) to be able to perform meaningful measurements than having to adopt a nonsensical methodology which would provide no useful information to end users.

Rather than dismiss the results, I think you should reproduce it and make a diff to find out what Disconnect doesn't block, and see how it can be improved. Maybe I will work toward finding more about this in the next benchmark.

> You’re changing Ghostery’s default settings but not changing Disconnect’s default settings.

I believe this was appropriately accounted for. "Ghostery and Disconnect were set in their respective equivalent of 'Block all trackers' mode."

https://github.com/gorhill/httpswitchboard/wiki/Comparative-...

lol

In addition if you already have adblock, you can add the privacy list to your subscriptions:

https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/easyprivacy.txt

Also addons like requestpolicy and self destructing cookies are beneficial.

I thought Privacy Badger would be better, no?

The option is off by default. Does everything have to be made into a privacy-invading scandal piece? I expect better from the MIT technical review.

Just in case you didn't notice: "June 17, 2013"

Alternatives: http://prism-break.org/en/

It has an option to turn off anonymous statistical data. If this works then I'm okay with it, if not, someone please let me know.

Well, the option is actually to turn in on. By default, Ghostery does not collect anything.

It's off by default. I've made the informed choice to opt in because I read their blog and understand how they work and I like the product. There could be no less offensive way of collecting data.

Not exactly the same but here's a more anonymous way to block unwanted sites.

http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

Evidon is an interesting company, they sort of screw with both of their customers: * Users - the main thrust of this article, potentially misleading tracking * Advertisers - holding them hostage via being one of the sole providers of certification to the legislation they support (I have witnessed instances where a company turned down their services, were reportedly threatened by an evidon sales rep, and then were shortly thereafter reported as not serving the ad choices banner. Not a smoking gun, but suspicious).

This actually seems kind of brilliant. It's using the still small but statistically signifiant pool of people who are proactive about not being tracked to track the trackers themselves, then selling this information to the the people who pay the trackers.

Trackers tracking trackers to track trackers.

Thank you, thats exactly what we do. =)

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