Google Is Top Tracker of Surfers in Study

When asked about online privacy, most people say they want more information about how they are being tracked and more control over how their personal information is used. Those consumer expectations are rarely in line with the data collection practices of Internet companies, which often collect information about their users not only on their own sites, but also when those users visit other sites across the Web.

When asked about online privacy, most people say they want more information about how they are being tracked and more control over how their personal information is used. Those consumer expectations are rarely in line with the data collection practices of Internet companies, which often collect information about their users not only on their own sites, but also when those users visit other sites across the Web.Those are some of the central findings of a new privacy study conducted by a group of graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, which was released late Monday. The students at the School of Information — Joshua Gomez, Travis Pinnick and Ashkan Soltani — studied consumer expectations by looking at sources like complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and data collected by the state of California and a privacy group. They analyzed company practices using Ghostery, a browser plug-in that detects cookies, Web beacons and other types of trackers that allow third parties to gather information about Web site visitors, often without their knowledge.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/google-is-top-tracker-of-surfers-in-study/Also see:Study: Web Trackers Systematically Compromise Users’ Privacy
Do you know who’s tracking you when you’re surfing the Web ” and what they do with the information? A new study suggests that you may not know as much as you think.The study by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, which was released late Monday, indicates that Web users may be tracked (“bugged,” as the researchers put it) by dozens of sources on a visit to a single site. In a single month, they found 100 monitoring agents on one site, blogspot.com.
http://www.darkreading.com/securityservices/security/privacy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217701421

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