NYT: New Web Code Draws Concern Over Risks to Privacy

[gristy]

Yikes!

New Web Code Draws Concern Over Risks to Privacy
By TANZINA VEGA
Published: October 10, 2010

Worries over Internet privacy have spurred lawsuits, conspiracy theories and consumer anxiety as marketers and others invent new ways to track computer users on the Internet. But the alarmists have not seen anything yet.

In the next few years, a powerful new suite of capabilities will become available to Web developers that could give marketers and advertisers access to many more details about computer users’ online activities. Nearly everyone who uses the Internet will face the privacy risks that come with those capabilities, which are an integral part of the Web language that will soon power the Internet: HTML 5.
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The new Web language and its additional features present more tracking opportunities because the technology uses a process in which large amounts of data can be collected and stored on the user’s hard drive while online. Because of that process, advertisers and others could, experts say, see weeks or even months of personal data. That could include a user’s location, time zone, photographs, text from blogs, shopping cart contents, e-mails and a history of the Web pages visited.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/business/media/11privacy.html?_r=1&hp

[leveymg]

1. Who needs the NSA, when every corporation can freely spy on everyone.

Big brother is everywhere.

[Ratty]

2. I don't get this article, How does HTML 5 make things worse?

I just don't see the problem here. Cookies now can hold a lot of data so this isn't anything new. Cookies of themselves aren't bad things. We absolutely need a way to store data during stateless transactions like http. Without cookies you could not stay logged in to site, nor would shopping carts be possible. As we move to browser-based javascript programs we need a standard way to store a lot more data than traditional cookies allow. Again, not a bad thing.

People abuse cookies, true but browsers have built in capabilities that limit privacy abuses such as the ability to delete cookies, block cross-domain cookie access, forbid certain sites from accessing cookies, etc. And for added privacy - when advertisers get together to foil these restrictions - addons and plugins provide even more advanced privacy protection. I don't see how HTML 5 is going to change this situation. If they track you now, they'll track you under HTML 5. If you take steps to make sure they can't track you now you'll be able to take steps to make sure they can't do it under HTML 5.

I suppose if one is worried about the clueless, those who use insecure browsers or don't take steps to protect their privacy, HTML 5 will allow a LOT more data to be stored but really cookies can hold a lot of data now - 4,096 bytes max (as a comparison this entire post is about 1,450 bytes in size) - so if you let them they can track an awful lot about you right now. HTML 5 really won't change that.