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Ear to the Ground

Europe Cares About Privacy, Even If Europeans Don’t

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Posted on Mar 8, 2011
Daniel Erwin (CC-BY)

In the age of oversharing, we take it for granted that our every status is up to date and hanging out for all to see. Privacy, we are told, is dead. But over in Europe, they have crazy new laws that actually restrict how businesses stalk us online. Communists.

BBC:

The way websites track visitors and tailor ads to their behaviour is about to undergo a big shake-up.

From 25 May, European laws dictate that “explicit consent” must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via text files called “cookies”.

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By tony, March 9, 2011 at 6:52 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

It’s refreshing to see a govt. that care about
protecting people, rather than pandering to corporate
interests.  I wish we had that here (USA).

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By brianrouth, March 9, 2011 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment

more about it here http://vimeo.com/20715539

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By brianrouth, March 9, 2011 at 5:20 pm Link to this comment

we are headed for for more corporate control

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By WriterOnTheStorm, March 9, 2011 at 1:47 pm Link to this comment

Europe. Where people occasionally come before commerce. Must be nice…

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By dbtodd, March 9, 2011 at 8:50 am Link to this comment

Do not be duped into thinking the UK cares at all about privacy. When British
Telecom used Phorm software for TWO YEARS to spy on customers without
their consent or knowledge, the UK government said it was just fine (and legal).
It was not until the EU stepped in that they did anything about it, and even then
they simply added a few rules.

A quick search for UK PHORM will lead you to articles from BBC (too soft) and
others, but some example stories linked below:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1051760/eu-slaps-uk-phorm-
fiasco
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7619297.stm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/29/eu_phorm/


This effort is likely too late anyway. With technologies such as Evercookie, and
alternatives to tracking that do not use cookies (system profiles), cookies are
not needed for companies to track users and their behavior.

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By FRTothus, March 9, 2011 at 8:10 am Link to this comment

Europeans, like everyone else, care very much about
privacy.  Only a fool does not.

Understand that in Europe, one can tell the Post Office
not to deliver junk mail, but in the US, the public is
forced to subsidize it.  How’s that freedom thing
working out for you, America?

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BarbieQue's avatar

By BarbieQue, March 9, 2011 at 6:58 am Link to this comment

Many people think that if they delete their cookies and change their IP every so often they are preventing the kind of tracking described in the article.

But thanks to Flash cookies, or Local Shared Objects, which are usually stored in a different location than the .html cookies used by a specific browser, you may have not prevented anything. Some flash cookies can even respawn deleted .html cookies!

It’s curious that this article does not specifically mention flash cookies other than this >>”..changing settings on browsers may not be sophisticated enough for the demands of the directive…<<”.

You can find out now if you have flash cookies:

Search your hard drives for *.sol (*—wildcard character)

Some people will be very surprised at what turns up.

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