Entries Tagged 'Internet'

ComScore Networks is a huge marketing research firm that recruits silly people who care nothing for their privacy in order to take virtual photos of every Web page viewed by those 1 million participants.

Unfortunately, you may be one of those “participants” without your consent or knowledge.

“[The] software is sneaking onto users’ computers without the user agreeing to receive it,” says Harvard University researcher Ben Edelman, who documented at least ten unauthorized comScore downloads. Eric Howes, director of malware research at antivirus company Sunbelt Software, and his researchers separately observed hundreds of unauthorized comScore downloads in a three-month period this fall.

Apparently ComScore is the only online marketing research firm that partners with “third parties,” which often becomes a euphemism for “slime-ball spyware dealers.” It pays to stay out of the bad neighborhoods, kids.

The rest of the story is at Forbes.

If privacy and social networking seem like incongruent concepts to you, well… you likely don’t have enough unwanted virtual “friends” yet.

A new approach is being offered by Rantiq, a company that wants to give you control over your social media profile, and that includes controlling access to select information. Instead of an all on or all off solution, Rantiq lets users control the privacy of up to 15 profile sections for every single friend.

Here’s Rantiq’s Founder and CEO Enoch Lee from the press release:

“At Rantiq we want to give users more options instead of an on or off solution,” Lee says. “We believe that as people make more online friends, they will want more control over the privacy of their profile. Giving users more control over their privacy will help protect personal information in our social network.”

Basically what Rantiq does is let you aggregate all your social site data in one profile, while also giving you control of who sees what. As social media begins to look and act more like the offline world, is there any doubt that people will look back in disbelief in the near future at how freewheeling we were with our personal information?