Are You Aware Of This?

[society]

When you visit a website, your IP address, type of machine and screen size can easily be ascertained.

The website can also see how you got to the site - by what search term or the last website you were on. Your location can be found by cross-referring your IP address with other data.

If you are using a work computer, it's easy to find out who your employer is. It is an entirely automated process, says technology expert Tom Cheesewright. But an IP address is actually not a foolproof way to follow individuals, he adds.

A user's IP address on a personal computer can change regularly, he says. For this reason, most companies will only use the IP address to get a vague idea of where their visitors are coming from.

In theory internet service providers (ISPs) can "see" everything a user chooses to do online including every website they visit. But BT, one of the biggest British ISPs, says: "In terms of internet usage BT doesn't keep a record of any of our customers' browsing activity as we have no business need for this."

Many will know of the issue of using cookies for tracking. If you are looking at a news site and click on an advert for a car that will be remembered. When you visit a different site a car advert is likely to appear. Commercial transactions go back forever on a site like Amazon. They know what books you've looked at and didn't buy. Travel sites will record flights you reserved but didn't end up booking.

It is remembered for at least six months, says Prof Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, co-author of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think.

Theoretically, a news site could use cookies to establish that you often clicked on stories about terrorism. That might be interesting information for the security services.

Of course, clear your cookies at the end of every browsing session and part of the ability to follow you disappears.

Search engines like Google have the ability to remember your search terms. "Even when you make a mistake it's remembered," says Mayer-Schonberger.

Theoretically, this might lead to someone with a legitimate academic interest in terrorism and bomb-making techniques being labelled a terrorist by a computer tracking programme.

But there is disagreement among the experts over the way search engines like Google remember. It is easy to clear your cache and cookies, Cheesewright says. Once you do that Google may remember your searches but can't connect them to you specifically.

He believes Google's desire to find out more about you as an individual is tempered by a fear of breaching privacy laws and expectations. It is only interested in the information it needs to target you with advertising and it has quite enough to do that successfully without storing named records of individuals' search histories. http://tinyurl.com/njoyjjn

Do read the entire article, there's more to learn.

[Spoonboy]

One should leave sites about tap heads alone, then!!

[bazwillrun]

hiding your ip addy and changing it regularly is childs play, there are lots of apps that will do it .
Once done all the rest of the info is pretty academic
Its not as hard to cover your tracks as a lot of people would have you believe.

[bednobs]

"this might lead to someone with a legitimate academic interest in terrorism and bomb-making techniques being labelled a terrorist"

like who?