Internet Tracking

Nowadays, many people own smartphones as well as other technological devices. We use them to do a variety of activities such as reading the news, shopping, surfing the web, etc. However, as we are doing these things, companies are tracking our actions, and often without our knowledge. For example, they can observe what products we spend time looking at, and then show more ads of that same item. Basically, the information they obtain from tracking us is utilised by various companies as a way to improve their marketing. While this sounds like a useful method, there is some controversy: is this an invasion of the customers’ privacy? After all, I am sure that everyone values their privacy, and would not be at ease knowing that what they do online is being tracked. Having considered both sides of the issue, I believe that companies should not be allowed to track customers without their consent.

He tells the reader about how the internet uses your information. " A network that has ads on a lot of sites will recognize a browser when it goes to different web sites, enabling the ad network to get an idea of that persona's interests."(5) He also talks about Cookies and how they use your information.

A website places a cookie on your computer to remember certain data so it may run smoother when you return to the site, some government’s collect data to collect data for national security, Google can also collect data to send to marketing companies.

I have also found out that sniffer can be used to track certain packets that were being sent and received when browsing on the Internet. For example, just searching up www.google.com packets are being linked to others when launched. The packets can be sent to ads, weblinks, or that specific site. This also provided me some personal knowledge about how people can track you based on IP when you ping to another destination. I found the hands-on activity very eye opening to the user using the program. It shows a lot behind the scene of what happens when you search for a simple website link nvcc.edu or google.com. I also found that people who work with networking could also benefit off of using a sniffer. They can determine how the traffic between the connection to another website/user. For instance, if multiple people demanded to search for one certain link and it ends up crashing the site. A network analyzer can see how many packets were received and requested within that period. The network analyzers could determine a solution based on the data provided from the program and help slower the traffic to prevent future crashes or failure to connect within the

Nicholas Carr uses his article “Tracking is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers” to explain the dangers of tracking on internet users by using real life examples. The first example that Carr uses is about a man named Tom Owad, who found

Cookies are used to collect the information about your visit to the website. This information can be used in many ways for the multiple devices to monitor and maintain the information about the visitors to our website. Some visitors may set the browser not to accept the cookies or notify when you receive the cookies for deciding whether to accept the cookies. If you do not accept the cookies then you will not experience any visit orelse you have to subscribe the service offerings on this website. These cookies play an important role for providing the good customer experience.

In Jim Harper’s essay “Web Users Get as Much as They Give” (546), he states that “Most web sites track users, particularly through the use of cookies, little text files placed on Web surfers’ computers. Sites use cookies to customize a visitor’s experience.” This does make it hard to have privacy, but what Harper may not have considered is the good things about the cookies being stored. If someone were looking something up and they press the “stay logged in” button, they could close their browser and start back up where they left off, by staying logged in. This helps people who have a bad memory, or who browse the web frequently without remembering all the sites they

In today’s era of technology, many people are concerned about internet privacy. Most concerns are usually sparked by misinformation. One piece of technology that is most misunderstood is the cookie and its uses.

They find a way to match your interests to the sites that show up on your screen. They keep a

The focus of this blog entry (and indeed my own area of preparation for the seminar) will be electronic tracking. I hope to examine some of the measured benefits of such technology, and address some of the more ethical issues surrounding the topic- particularly the balance between practical benefit and theoretical loss of liberty.

“Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty” is an essay written by Nicholas Carr in 2010 in the Wall Street Journal. He said that there are chances that, “our personal data will fall into the wrong hands” (Carr 438). It means that people’s personal information might drop under the hands of hackers, data aggressors, and stalkers. In addition, Carr believes that “personal information may be used to influence our behavior and even our thoughts in ways that are invisible to us” (Carr 439). It means that the data aggressors misuse people’s information in opposite way or in a wrong way. For example, data aggressors steal the people’s personal information and use that information for their own benefits. Therefore, Carr believes that government should regulate the internet. Unlike Carr, Harper believes that people are responsible for their own information. They should be aware and concerned about potential dangers of posting their personal information on the internet. However, it’s people duty to be aware of its consequences before posting any of their personal

The Internet?s leading advertising company, DoubleClick, Inc. compiled thorough information on the browsing routine of millions of users. They

Internet privacy is the security of a user’s personal data that is stored or published on the internet. The internet is an important part of every individual’s daily life. In today’s society, the internet is used by many different people for many reasons. It can be used for research, communication, and purchasing items. Without the internet, many things that are completed during the course of a day would be impossible or take time to complete. As people use the internet, everything is stored in a database that tracks and keeps any personal information that is entered by users. As users continue to use the internet to complete important tasks such as purchasing items and paying bills, their privacy and security become at risk. Although the internet can be seen to have a positive impact on society, it does have a negative impact. Since the internet can be accessed by anybody it can cause a lot of damage. Examples of internet risk include identity thieves, phasing, and scams. Due to things such as online shopping, banking and other e-commerce options, personal information is stored in the internet enabling many cybercrimes to occur. Cybercrimes are very similar to any regular crime; the crime just happens to take place on websites for criminals to hack and steal user’s information for their own personal benefit. Cybercriminals tend to attack users based on their emails, social media accounts, and web history because the most history about an individual is stored in those sites.

However, targeted advertising has raised new questions on privacy since it must collect user’s information in order to publish advertisement. When a consumer visits a website, every page they view, the time spent on each page, the new pages they click on and how they interact with the server, allow browsers to collect that data. Analyzing from the technology used in behavioral targeting advertising, web browsing history will be tracked and sent to web server. In order to best select advertisements to display, data mining and machine learning theory will be implemented for analyzing users’ behavior (Korolova 2010).

They can identify websites frequently visited by users, those vulnerable websites that can be targeted and what users often search for.