Author: Anthony Boynes
Date: 06:38:10 11/25/01
Go up one level in this thread
On November 25, 2001 at 03:51:31, Andy Serpa wrote: >Hmmm... > >Thoughts: > >1) According to the definition offered at Bugnosis.org, the FIDE counter does >not consitute a web bug, because it is not invisible. In fact, not only is it >not invisible, it is clearly an advertisment -- an invitation to check out >FIDE.com. > You didn't read the definition very closely. It doesn't say that a web bug has to be invisible. >2) The counter has no particular "abilities" that enable it to do anything that >CCC couldn't do otherwise, and every page, every image, every banner ad on the >internet can do essentially the same thing -- although possibly not as easily. >In other words, the invisible / not invisible distinction is essentially >meaningless -- the bugnosis people just want to make it sound like something is >done to you against your will. > This is usually an automated process. Do you really think that most web hosting sites have some poor guy manually looking over every entry in their logs? There is plenty of software that will do this for them. >3) As an example, CCC could take all the information it knows about all of us: >Names, email addresses, logs of every time we log on and what posts we read -- >they could make a file on each of us by analyzing the content of our posts to >determine our likes & dislikes, and sell all that to whoever would buy it. The >question is: do you trust CCC not to do that? Steve may not be doing this personally but there is a reason that people give you "free counters". You get a counter and they get information about who visits your site. Do you think they just throw this information in the bit bucket after collect it? Good or bad, many people have not the slightest clue as to what information can be collected about them. There have been several well known exploits which allowed people running web sites to read the contents of your hard drive and even pull information from cookies or data files on your machine. This may all be a trade-off but the stakes can be high if you not prepared, or take a non-chalant attitude towards privacy.
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.