In the News

We all use the internet to shop online, search for information, or on a more personal note, handle medical and financial transactions. In The Dark Side of ‘Replay Sessions’ That Record Your Every Move Online, Nitasha Tiku discusses how analytics tools and third party affiliates track users on websites, saving detailed user information for later use and potentially putting the security of user’s information and privacy in jeopardy.  Some common ways sites can collect your information include:

• Saving your site searches even before you submit a search in the toolbar
• Retaining form information entered anywhere on a site, including at checkout
• Recording all keystrokes, mouse movements, and scrolls on particular websites

Our Take

Ever been stalked across multiple websites by a pair of shoes you looked at one time a few weeks ago? Advertising is simply a more noticeable manifestation of the often creepy amount of information that sites are collecting about your every move online. After all, the more information that a company has about you, your preferences, and your behaviors, the easier it is for them to provide you with the kind of positive experience that causes you to spend the most money with them.

But how much privacy are you willing to trade for convenience? This is a question that not enough people know to ask, and that not enough companies are incentivized to present us with. And if companies aren’t careful about which of their partners have access to the information they are collecting, the information you share about yourself may be accessible to more people than you think.

Recommendations

Consider your privacy whenever you’re browsing online:

• It’s difficult to know the web of business relationships behind every transaction you do with a company: give the minimum amount of information necessary for a transaction
• Check your browser settings and site-specific account settings to see whether and how you can be tracked by the sites you visit
• Use Tracking Protection, limit the amount of time you save cookies for, and be wary about using Gmail or Facebook accounts to log into every site you use
• Be especially wary of “free” services:  if you’re not paying for a product, you probably ARE the product