Tiger Claw TV&Radio

Critical Failure · Yahurrr Joined: 25 Feb 2009 Posts: 1042

So basicly amazon and yahoo and some other big sites give you tracking cookies which note every website and keystroke you make. The ad companies use this information to make the web ads "fit your needs". The trouble is, tons of information is collected including search strings.

So a "Do Not Track" list has been proposed to the FTC making it possible for people to opt out of this kind of shady marketing reaserch. Some argue that you can already opt out if you are handy with a pc, some argue that most don't really understand that they are being tracked so there is no informed consenct.

I'm writing a paper on this ethical issue, so sound off. What do you guys thing?

triverse · Joined: 21 Mar 2010 Posts: 396 Location: Arkansas

In all honesty, I am against tracking like that. I think it is unethical and should be outlawed. I mean, if restricted to one site it is fine but when they go and start recording every keystroke whether on the net or not (it is none of their business what you type to grandma in notepad and then print locally but currently, they can track that and read your letters).

For $5 a month, you can have access to very very detailed information about your visitors (much more than the 2 or 3 stat counters I use) down to where the "hotspots" are on your pages. Hotspots basically show you with a temperature gauge (looks a lot like your local weather maps on the news) where people are clicking, where they leave the mouse on your site (so that you can maybe place ads in those areas so that they might be more likely to be clicked or placing text there to be read).

There are options available that are limited to specific sites, this "all in one" no matter if on the net or not tracking needs to stop.
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