The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

Welcome to the world of the new Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) self-regulatory program where you have the same amount of control over being tracked by online advertisers as you had last week.

The IAB: 

This comprehensive Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising will help protect consumers’ privacy rights and expectations in ad-supported online media.  This is the first time the entire advertising ecosystem has joined forces to implement a program empowering consumers to manage their data. –IAB

Consumer Watchdog: 

Consumers have no more control today than they did yesterday over whether their information is tracked and collected by companies online,” said Carmen Balber, Washington director for Consumer Watchdog. “This industry program is another example of the failure of self-regulation to protect consumers from unwanted monitoring of every move they make on the internet and their mobile devices. 

Consumer Watchdog also pointed out five inherent failures within the IAB self-regulatory program:

1. Transparency:  Consumers are not notified  when tracking begins.
2. Persistency:  When the consumer clears browser cookies, the choice to opt out of targeted ads disappears.
3. Universal Application: The opt-out only applies to participating companies.
4. Enforceability: It cannot be enforced against companies that do not particpate.
5. Mobile Devices: Not applicable to mobile devices.

The advertising industry does not allow consumers to opt-in. Third-party advertisers surreptitiously use information gathered from your buying and browsing habits to target you with their relevant ads – following you around the Internet and tracking your every move. IAB members are responsible for selling over 86% of online advertising in the United States, and they want you to buy into their fallacy that their cute little i-con is going to protect you from them.

John Fowler, a Cocoon Facebook fan and privacy advocate had an interesting take on the new do-not-track icon:

It’s not like that at all! What it is exactly like is getting someone to install your kitchen for you and without you knowing they put a hidden camera in. They then see your kids accidentally break your kitchen window and they contact their friend who is a glazier and then they cold-call you wondering if you were interested in any windows.

You invited the kitchen fitters into your home BUT you DID NOT give them permission to do anything else.

Why don’t the BIG Dogs let you OPT-IN?

With 86% of online advertising in the US coming from IAB members such as Amazon,DIGG, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and YouTube, it does not take a stroke of genius to figure out how much the new self-regulating i-CON will not protect consumers from unwanted monitoring.

Did you know that Cocoon, a Mozilla Firefox plug-in offers full protection from the self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising? Advertisers, their ads, and their browsing tracking cookies are blocked when this Cocoon preference is turned on. You can get it for FREE now!.

The Cocoon client now supports both Mozilla Firefox 6 and Firefox beta 7. The binary component of the client was removed and Cocoon now runs on a broader spectrum of hardware. There were also some minor improvements to performance and the client was enhanced to resist proxy issues.

Cocoon continues to be virus-free, private, secure and FREE!

Thank you for your continued support!

–The Cocoon Team

Our first Fight the Good Fight featured Internet hero today is StopBadware.org which began as a project to experiment with ways to combat malicious software at the  Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. In January 2010 StopBadware.org became a stand-alone nonprofit group replete with partners (Google, Mozilla and PayPal), SoftLayer (their sponsor) and data providers ( Google, NSFOCUS and Sunbelt).

The Battle

There is an ongoing battle on the Internet today between good and evil. The kosher side of the Internet contributes to the good of the Internet as a whole, fostering and supporting the idea of a strong digital ecosystem for all. The evil side of the Internet exists in the dark recesses of an underground economy that target individuals, organizations, corporations, financial institutions, eCommerce and governments for the purpose of information theft, monetary gain or both.

StopBadware as an Internet Hero

Maxim Weinstein, President & Executive Director and Caitlin Condon, Raconteur of StopBadware graciously responded to my request for information about their nonprofit organization while in the midst of moving their office!

As you know, StopBadware focuses on cleaning up badware from the Web. Collective defense of the Web means that site owners, hosting providers, browser vendors, search engines, and the security industry all have to work together to share information and coordinate their defensive strategies. StopBadware works most closely with site owners and hosting providers, but these groups don’t exist in a vacuum. We therefore communicate regularly with the other constituencies I listed—engaging them in working groups, speaking to them at conferences, connecting them with each other, etc. This allows us to ensure that we’re advocating for solutions everyone can get behind and that flow together into what we hope over time will become a better defended ecosystem. –Max

An email from Caitlin further clarified their stance on BADWARE:

Essentially, the bottom line for us is this: badware is a shared problem, and it demands a shared solution. Every participant in the Internet ecosystem has a responsibility to help protect the Web from badware, and we believe it’s fundamentally important to recognize those who are (and aren’t) doing their parts. That’s what our We Stop Badware™ Web Host program is about. Quite simply, hosting providers occupy a key position in the architecture of the Web, and it’s their responsibility to protect both their customers and the Internet as a whole. We developed our Best Practices for Web Hosting Providers to make it easier for them to do this; the We Stop Badware™ program is an added incentive for hosting providers to take action and let people know about it. We’re constantly looking for ways to make it easier for people to do the right thing: be a part of the solution.

StopBadware has myriad resources and provides structured education for Internet users, website owners and web hosting providers. With software guidelines, badware alerts and a form to report badware here - StopBadware.org is a good thing!