LET’S BE ON HIGH ALERT!!!
As we have noted several times (click here, for example), companies are increasingly tracking our online behavior. So, it is imperative to be aware of this and zealously guard your privacy.
The latest major story on this topic is an in-depth Wall Street Journal article written by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries and Jeremy Singer-Vine. In the article, they conclude that: “The widening ability to associate people’s real-life identities with their browsing habits marks a privacy milestone, further blurring the already unclear border between our public and private lives. In pursuit of ever more precise and valuable information about potential customers, tracking companies are redefining what it means to be anonymous. The use of real identities across the Web is going mainstream at a rapid clip. A Wall Street Journal examination of nearly 1,000 top Web sites found that 75% now include code from social networks, such as Facebook‘s ‘Like’ or Twitter’s ‘Tweet’ buttons. Such code can match people’s identities with their Web-browsing activities on an unprecedented scale and can even track a user’s arrival on a page if the button is never clicked.”
Click the photo to read more — a lot more — from the Wall Street Journal about how your behavior is being tracked; click here to see a video interview with Valentino-DeVries.
