# Tracking?
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419
**Category:** Meta
**Created:** [May 31, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419 "2013-05-31T15:23:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Hobbes\_Choice](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Hobbes_Choice)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 9:31am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/21 "2013-06-02T09:31:52Z")
> [@Smears](#):
>
> Well, websites cost cash to operate, and time. A lot of people think their time is worth some cash as well. So how do they make this money to allow all this to take place?
>
> I’ve asked that of Carleas too. He has not answered.
>
> Advertising. And if you wanna make advertising money, then you gotta take the deal that makes the money, which is probably gonna be w/ companies like google and amazon. I think all they’re doing is gathering anonymous user data to help them target users with ads they’re more likely to click.
>
> Think about it man.
> I’m not your “man”, boy!
> I old enough to be your daddy.
> You could use anything for something sinister, but if there’s a possibility for profit, then you can be assured that’s what the businesses are going to do. It would cost them money to cooperate with investigations. They don’t wanna do things that cost em money. People are just like rats in a maze. Put the food where you want them to go. If something sinister happens, it’s just an aside. For the most part, the rats go for the cheese and that’s it.
>
> It is as well we know, rather than remain in ignorance.
>
> What I think everyone should do is donate money to the site so that Carleas can maintain it and maybe get a new pair of shoes. If we outdid the advertising deals, then maybe we could get rid of them altogether.
>
> I got $5 on it.
SInce the funding of the site seems to be shrouded in mystery, I’ll reserve my judgement.
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 12:26pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/22 "2013-06-02T12:26:12Z")
> [@tentative](#):
>
> There are other reasons for tracking. Success breeds success. Go to google and type in philosophy websites. Guess who is at the top of the list? Google and other search engines list sites based on activity. The more clicks they receive, the higher you are on the ladder. So tracking has positive results as well. That doesn’t mean that homeland security doesn’t scour the net with it’s key word programs looking for evil doers. But that involves a tiny percentage of the overall net activity.
>
> The only downside to tracking is that there is more info (provided by you) and it can be accessed faster. If the big bad government wanted to know everything about you, it was available before. It just took longer to investigate and assemble a dossier on you. I’ve said it before. If you want privacy, turn off your computer and throw away the smart phone. Sounds easy doesn’t it? But the reality is that all you can do is slow down the gathering of info on you. If they want to know, they’ll get there.
>
> Soooo… what are you doing that’s creating the paranoia? Sexting your girl friend doesn’t count.
Clearly you are not ‘up to speed’ on the subject as you appear to have mistaken the perpetrators. The gov doesn’t have to be involved in the tracking, they can simply subpena the data business has collected.
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/23 "2013-06-02T13:16:28Z")
> [@smears](#):
>
> Well if you’re gonna say ILP is complicit, I gotta ask why you pick them out of you know…the entire rest of the complicit world?
The entire rest of the world is not complicit, there are websites that do not perform ‘tracking’ in the sense the term is used here. I defined the use of the term in the OP as the collection of browsing history data. Carleas misdirected the subject of my query with a lot of fluff about “legitimate” use of administrative data, and while data is being tracked (for administrative purposes) it is not the sort of data ‘tracking’ refers to.
Odd that I would search for a subject (lets say for example “political leftism”) on ILP and then check the spelling of a word on [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) where I’m confronted with all sorts of left leaning political advertisements. That isn’t a coincidence. ILP passes the data to amazon who passes it to:
[ssl-images-amazon.com](http://ssl-images-amazon.com)
[images-amazon.com](http://images-amazon.com)
[amazon-adsystem.com](http://amazon-adsystem.com)
[cloudfront.net](http://cloudfront.net)
[doubleclick.net](http://doubleclick.net)
“[CloudFront.net](http://CloudFront.net) is not a web site. It is a redirect to Amazon CloudFront. Amazon CloudFront is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments. It is a pay-as-you-go service.”
“[Doubleclick.net](http://Doubleclick.net) is an Internet server that displays advertisements hosted on Google’s advertising network. In addition, the Doubleclick tracking cookie is placed on your computer by some websites to aid in the effectiveness of Google’s advertising by tracking the websites that you visit and the terms that you search Google for. Doubleclick is one of many online advertising networks, but you can reduce the number of advertisements displayed on your computer considerably by blocking this server.”
"Instructions to block (must be logged in as an administrator and have real-time virus protection temporarily turned off, or your edits to the host file will be considered to be performed by a virus):
"Open the Start menu, and then click “Computer.”
Double-click the icon for your computer’s “C:” hard drive, and then open the “Windows,” then “System32,” then “drivers” and then “etc” folders.
Double-click the file “HOSTS.” Select the “Notepad” icon when Windows asks you which program to open the file with, and then click “OK.”
Click to place the cursor at the beginning of the first blank line at the bottom of the file.
Type “127.0.0.1 [ad.doubleclick.net](http://ad.doubleclick.net)” in the blank line.
Close Notepad, and then click “Yes” when prompted to save the file."
A current updated browser won’t protect you, if this is the sort of manual method required to block just one server from its tracking purposes.
At present, at least for Firefox, the extent to which this browser protects you from trackers is sending them a cookie that requests you not be tracked. Nothing to guarantee the request is honored.
It isn’t big brother you’ve got to be concerned with it’s big brothers cousin, big business, and how it seeks to manipulate values, and arguably, not in ways I would consider end in doing good.
Caveat pasco - let the browser beware. And let the human doing the browsing be aware.
---
### Author:  [@phyllo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/phyllo)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 3:46pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/24 "2013-06-02T15:46:09Z")
Set your browser so that it does not accept third-party cookies. That will stop a lot of tracking.
This is how:
[howto.cnet.com/8301-11310\_39-200 … le-chrome/](http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-20042703-285/disable-third-party-cookies-in-ie-firefox-and-google-chrome/)
Beware: some sites may not work if third-party cookies are disabled(possibly Facebook ‘like’ button for example).
---
### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/25 "2013-06-02T16:24:15Z")
Hobbes how old are you? Ill be 34 in August.
---
### Author:  [@tentative](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/tentative)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/26 "2013-06-02T16:44:20Z")
> [@Mowk](#):
>
> > [@tentative](#):
> >
> > There are other reasons for tracking. Success breeds success. Go to google and type in philosophy websites. Guess who is at the top of the list? Google and other search engines list sites based on activity. The more clicks they receive, the higher you are on the ladder. So tracking has positive results as well. That doesn’t mean that homeland security doesn’t scour the net with it’s key word programs looking for evil doers. But that involves a tiny percentage of the overall net activity.
> >
> > The only downside to tracking is that there is more info (provided by you) and it can be accessed faster. If the big bad government wanted to know everything about you, it was available before. It just took longer to investigate and assemble a dossier on you. I’ve said it before. If you want privacy, turn off your computer and throw away the smart phone. Sounds easy doesn’t it? But the reality is that all you can do is slow down the gathering of info on you. If they want to know, they’ll get there.
> >
> > Soooo… what are you doing that’s creating the paranoia? Sexting your girl friend doesn’t count.
>
> Clearly you are not ‘up to speed’ on the subject as you appear to have mistaken the perpetrators. The gov doesn’t have to be involved in the tracking, they can simply subpena the data business has collected.
Business isn’t going to do anything but pester you to BUY. It is the government who is going to do the bad stuff. Perpetrators who are trying to get into your wallet is one thing, but the perpetrators who can harm you is government. If you want to see everyone as “perpetrators”, go for it. I’m not worried about business, I’m worried about supression and coercion from “authorities”.
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/27 "2013-06-02T18:34:55Z")
Tent. If you believe the extent to which business is involved is innocent you’re welcome to it, however naive a belief that may be in this opinion. If you are unconcerned then you are unconcerned. I am quite cautiously concerned. Our history is filled with examples where business was not quite so innocent. See I’m not so fond of where business has brought us over the last 50 years. I don’t blame the shit on the government as it is simply in the pockets of business.
---
### Author:  [@Carleas](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Carleas)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 9:45pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/28 "2013-06-02T21:45:59Z")
Mowk, if all you mean is stealing browser history, ILP does not do that, nor does Google or Amazon. What Google and Amazon do is to put cookies on your computer, and make a note of the fact that the cookie showed up on a site about left-leaning politics, and when that cookie shows up on another site that hosts ads from Google or Amazon, they use that knowledge to feed you what they think are relevant ads. That doesn’t require looking at your browsing history, but looking at the history of you visiting sites from which they get data. If you go to a site without Google or Amazon installed, they won’t know anything about your activity there. Or, if you browse ILP in incognito mode or private browsing, they won’t know anything about your activity here.
There are many ways to avoid being tracked, if you’re really concerned. I use a Firefox plugin called Ghostery myself, and I recommend it highly. While it can be set to block trackers and ads and widgets and what have you, I don’t block anything. I only use it because it can be set to just show me how many trackers are on a site, something I find fascinating (I even wrote [my Master’s thesis on the privacy implications of new technology](http://hdl.handle.net/10822/553697)). A more robust option is to use a proxy, either set up your own or subscribe to something like Tor, to mask your browsing from the site you browse.
Hobbes, strictly speaking, I don’t have to have any trackers here. I don’t have to have advertising, and I could probably get analytics in a different way. And if I thought tracking was so bad, if I thought the government was as malevolent and powerful as some here seem to think, maybe I would not foist tracking on users. But I don’t. The government doesn’t care about about me or my browsing history, or the activity of any user on this site. Nor is the government powerful enough or well-enough organized to pay particular attention to any of us. Once in a great while they will use browsing history to track very high priority targets, but [even murderers who Google their methods don’t have their browsing history brought to bear](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/25/fool-proof-suffocation-methods_n_2188034.html).
Mowk, that Ted talk makes the same flawed argument that I rejected earlier. The proper analogy for web tracking is not that someone is “following you around with a camera and a notebook.” In that scenario, you are being singled out. It is sinister because the person following you around it targeting you, and you are right to be concerned when someone is particularly interested in your activity. But with web tracking, the trackers don’t give a shit about you. They want to know about your demographic. No human is likely to look at any of the data collected about you; it’s fed into an algorithm that spits back the ads it thinks will be most useful to you. If you are annoyed by the ads, if they aren’t useful to you, it’s a poor algorithm, but it isn’t sinister. When I was buying a car not too long ago, I looked at a few auto reviews, and then I got ads for many more. Some were useful to me, others weren’t. The next person like me will get marginally more useful ads because the ones I clicked will be rated slightly higher for my having clicked them.
In all the discussion of tracking, there are few if any examples where people have actually been harmed by this collection of information. As Helen Nissenbaum argues in Privacy in Context, people are upset about these invasions when the flow of information is surprising. But as I argue in my thesis, the solution is not to prevent the flow of information, but to get used to it. Kovacs may be afraid for his daughter, but I guarantee that his daughter’s generation, who grow up to expect this kind of tracking, will not find it creepy or strange the way those who grew up without it do. It’s the new normal, and it is in many ways empowering for individuals, who get custom tailored information, deals that are actually relevant to them and enrich their lives. And if nothing else, it helps piddly internet backwaters like ILP to pay the rent.
---
### Author:  [@phyllo](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/phyllo)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/29 "2013-06-02T22:01:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> enrich their lives
Our lives are enriched by being fed repetitive advertizing? 😮
---
### Author:  [@tentative](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/tentative)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/30 "2013-06-02T23:17:42Z")
It isn’t that info can’t be misused by whomever, because it can. But data is just data until someone assigns meaning to it. But tracking in itself isn’t malignant. It comes down to can it be or will it be used to harm you? If you think the latter then you need to do whatever you can to get invisible. It won’t change anything, it will just slow down the gathering of information on you. The only thing I can see that is a current problem is the inability to challenge negative information so that your history is correct as far as possible. But even that wrinkle will be addressed when the demand is great enough.
Just don’t get on a no-fly list until there is some mechanism in place to challenge the “mistake”. 😃
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/31 "2013-06-02T23:22:09Z")
Carleas, Anyone who benefits financially is someone I am likely going to view as having a slanted opinion. What are you going to do? Admit to the world any money you earn from the technology is from a source where ethics is questioned? I’d expect you to be on the side of “Oh yeah, it’s all above board”. You have a vested interest.
---
### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/32 "2013-06-02T23:43:00Z")
> [@phyllo](#):
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > enrich their lives
>
> Our lives are enriched by being fed repetitive advertizing? 😮
Yes. As a consumer, I sometimes wouldn’t know what to buy if it weren’t for pop up ads.
---
### Author:  [@tentative](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/tentative)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/33 "2013-06-03T03:02:06Z")
> [@Mowk](#):
>
> Carleas, Anyone who benefits financially is someone I am likely going to view as having a slanted opinion. What are you going to do? Admit to the world any money you earn from the technology is from a source where ethics is questioned? I’d expect you to be on the side of “Oh yeah, it’s all above board”. You have a vested interest.
Wow. You really have no idea about the “financial benefits” of owning a website, do you? Carleas might get enough to take his wife to McDonalds, but only the dollar menu. It doesn’t even remotely come close to the yearly cost of hosting services. Carleas isn’t likely to live long enough for the site to break into the black. Anyone who tells you they are making money off of a website is lying. Costs outweigh the pittance of income from “tracking” by miles. And just who besides you is “questioning the ethics” of ILP advertisements? It would appear that the person with a slanted opinion here is YOU.
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/34 "2013-06-03T04:22:02Z")
> [@tentative](#):
>
> > [@Mowk](#):
> >
> > Carleas, Anyone who benefits financially is someone I am likely going to view as having a slanted opinion. What are you going to do? Admit to the world any money you earn from the technology is from a source where ethics is questioned? I’d expect you to be on the side of “Oh yeah, it’s all above board”. You have a vested interest.
>
> Wow. You really have no idea about the “financial benefits” of owning a website, do you? Carleas might get enough to take his wife to McDonalds, but only the dollar menu. It doesn’t even remotely come close to the yearly cost of hosting services. Carleas isn’t likely to live long enough for the site to break into the black. Anyone who tells you they are making money off of a website is lying. Costs outweigh the pittance of income from “tracking” by miles. And just who besides you is “questioning the ethics” of ILP advertisements? It would appear that the person with a slanted opinion here is YOU.
Easy enough to research the intro rate at Bitfolk. Specifically no more then your idea. Doesn’t matter. The opinion I shared was simply that I question the position from anyone who has any financial stake in the subject of discussion. A little incentive corrupts a little, a lot of incentive corrupts a lot. The opinion expressed sought to place ILP in no particular or specific place along the continuum, only within the continuum. I have as much access to the generalities of cost as the next guy, but as they say the devil is in the details.
ME huh? :LOL:
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/35 "2013-06-03T04:41:40Z")
> [@Carleas](#):
>
> But as I argue in my thesis, the solution is not to prevent the flow of information, but to get used to it.
If I were a spider talking to a fly that’s just what I would say.
---
### Author:  [@Only\_Humean](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Only_Humean)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 11:28am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/36 "2013-06-03T11:28:11Z")
> [@Mowk](#):
>
> > [@Carleas](#):
> >
> > But as I argue in my thesis, the solution is not to prevent the flow of information, but to get used to it.
>
> If I were a spider talking to a fly that’s just what I would say.
If you distrust Carleas that completely, why are you wasting time on this thread? You asked explicitly for the management’s comments in your OP. Now you’re complaining because they’re the management. Doesn’t exactly scream good faith, does it?
There is no answer that won’t trigger further mistrust/paranoia. It’s a mindset, not a question to be answered.
---
### Author:  [@PavlovianModel146](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/PavlovianModel146)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 2:37pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/37 "2013-06-03T14:37:21Z")
> [@Mowk](#):
>
> All innocent enough? I don’t think being “profiled” is a nice thing. Don’t think there is “good mo-jo” that instigates it. It’s intention can be to manipulate and coerce. And I’m sensing a “tone”. LOL And yes I was referring to a particular sort of tracking.
>
> Computers are wonderful calculators. Collect data, run reports.
>
> Smears, you just ain’t worth the effort, no offense… rock on.
>
> Collusion dead ends on [googlesyndication.com](http://googlesyndication.com) and amazon as well. Perhaps it was my tone. LOL.
Steps:
1.) Close your Internet browser.
2.) Shut off the device.
3.) Unplug the device and disconnect all cables.
4.) Take the device to Goodwill and make a tax deductible donation.
---
### Author:  [@PavlovianModel146](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/PavlovianModel146)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/38 "2013-06-03T14:50:41Z")
> [@Mowk](#):
>
> Carleas, Anyone who benefits financially is someone I am likely going to view as having a slanted opinion. What are you going to do? Admit to the world any money you earn from the technology is from a source where ethics is questioned? I’d expect you to be on the side of “Oh yeah, it’s all above board”. You have a vested interest.
Yeah, that’s true, I’ve been to his mansion, adorned with marble fountains and enough roses to require an entire team of gardeners. He even let me drive his Maserati. Once. Big mistake. I guess I could have mentioned that I’ve never driven a stick before, but it doesn’t matter much, because he has two other ones and the damage to that one is tax deductible anyway. Oh, and the team of housekeepers, absolutely gorgeous. Just beautiful, Thai, I think, fortunately, thanks to the massive revenues driven by the Amazon clicks he was able to bribe them right into this country.
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/39 "2013-06-03T14:57:13Z")
> [@Only\_Humean](#):
>
> If you distrust Carleas that completely, why are you wasting time on this thread?
To provide opportunity for it to be earned.
> [@Only\_Humean](#):
>
> You asked explicitly for the management’s comments in your OP. Now you’re complaining because they’re the management. Doesn’t exactly scream good faith, does it?
Doesn’t scream anything if you were to ask.
> [@Only\_Humean](#):
>
> There is no answer that won’t trigger further mistrust/paranoia. It’s a mindset, not a question to be answered.
Well publishing a privacy policy would help don’t you think? A fair and upfront disclosure of management practices regarding privacy issues. What is done and not done. Cookies, Flash cookies? Fingerprinting? Householding? Web bugs? Partnerships with those who do utilize these techniques.
I mean when I came here, I came here, to ILP, not to Amazon or Google. Yet having coming to this individual site, I find out it is not so individual. I think that should be disclosed upfront.
An IP address is relatively individual. Even while I have a dynamic IP it hasn’t changed in quite some time. Combined with other techniques a fairly individual profile can be pieced together to identify a single users. Does not matter if it doesn’t include “personal” information. The techniques can manufacture individualization which becomes personal. On some sites I’ve encountered ads that ask if an ad is individually pertinent. Seems rather odd to ask if an ad is individually pertinent if they aren’t tracking the answers based on individual responses. To characterize the practices as mere demographics is flat out not answering in good faith.
---
### Author:  [@Mowk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mowk)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419/40 "2013-06-03T14:59:17Z")
Pav,
Step 1. Publish a privacy policy and be honest and transparent about your practices.
[Previous page](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tracking/36419.md?page=3)