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

Who Tracks You?

Every move you make on the Internet is being monetized by the advertising ecosystem. During the course of a typical day – if you use your computer, your smartphone, your TV and shop at your local stores using a loyalty card – targeted advertising will trail behind you. When you sit down to watch TV, your TV is watching you. Visiting Facebook, searching on Google or Bing also adds to the fleshing out of your behavioral profile that consists of your searches, online habits, preferences and buying patterns.

“Already, the web sites you visit reshape themselves before you like a carnivorous school of fish, and this is only the beginning. Right now, a huge chunk of what you’ve ever looked at on the Internet is sitting in databases all across the world. The line separating all that it might say about you, good or bad, is as thin as the letters of your name. If and when that wall breaks down, the numbers may overwhelm the name.” –The Atlantic

Infographic provided by BackgroundCheck.org.

Check out Cocoon: an online privacy solution that prevents online tracking from a privacy-invasive web.

Tell us what you think by leaving a comment at our blog. You can also visit us on Twitter and Facebook.

In a day and age where your employment can be affected by your online social life and obtaining a loan can be denied based on your shopping habits, it’s no surprise consumers are expressing their concerns.

According to a Consumer Reports survey conducted in March of 2012, U.S. adults are still very much concerned for their privacy and safety both online and on their mobile devices. More than one thousand U.S. adults were interviewed in an effort to shed light on the burgeoning issue.

71 percent of the respondents were “very concerned” about websites collecting and distributing their personal information without consent. Nearly two-thirds of smartphone owners were “very concerned” with apps accessing and logging personal data without their knowledge or permission.

58 percent of respondents said they were “very concerned” with their children being tracked online and provided targeted ads from advertisers. This comes as no surprise,however, as the Wall Street Journal last year found that 30 percent more tracking cookies were being used on kids’ websites than those aimed at the general public.

More than half of the respondents were concerned with the prospect of being denied employment or a loan based on data regarding your online activity or purchases you have made. Use Cocoon when you browse the web and keep your private data to yourself. You never know who’s following in your footsteps!

The Cocoon Team!

[Source]

Every move you make on the Internet is being monetized by the advertising ecosystem.

“Already, the web sites you visit reshape themselves before you like a carnivorous school of fish, and this is only the beginning. Right now, a huge chunk of what you’ve ever looked at on the Internet is sitting in databases all across the world. The line separating all that it might say about you, good or bad, is as thin as the letters of your name. If and when that wall breaks down, the numbers may overwhelm the name.” –The Atlantic

Alexis Madrigal of  The Atlantic, recently begged the question “Who’s following your every move on the web, and what do they want from you?”  Madrigal recorded a 36-hour period of standard web surfing with Mozilla’s tool Collusion (a tool that collects data about the companies that are collecting data about you), and recorded 105 companies that were collecting information on his web travels.

“AS USERS, WE move through our Internet experiences unaware of the churning subterranean machines powering our Web pages with their cookies and pixel trackers, their tracking code and databases. We shop for wedding caterers and suddenly see ring ads appear on random Web pages we’re visiting. We sometimes think the ads following us around the Internet are “creepy.” We sometimes feel watched. Does it matter? We don’t really know what to think. --The Week 

Advertising $$$’s

The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us — and bagging that advertising money. —BYRON ACOHIDO | USA Today

Internet users should be informed that there are tools available, such as Cocoon, that give Internet consumers control of their private information and places a roadblock against online tracking.

Beginning March 1, 2012 the only way you will be able to opt out of the new Google privacy policy is to stop using Google services. Whether you continue to use their services or you decide to leave Google, there are some privacy concerns that you should be aware of.

Your Browsing History

The clock is ticking and you now have less than one week to delete your Google browsing history before it becomes a permanent part of your profile. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) provides instructions on how you can delete your Google web history before Google’s all-in-one new privacy policy takes effect.

Google’s Dashboard

PCWorld’s, Ian Paul  recommends Dashboard:  ”If you’re concerned about Google’s new privacy policy there are several things you can do to manage that information. You can use Google’s Dashboard to review and edit almost every Google service you use, you can also opt-out of DoubleClick ad tracking, as well as manage the types of ads that Google will serve you.”

Ads Preferences Manager

Opt-out of Google’s Display Network ads. You can do this while logged into your Google account by accessing the Ads Preferences Manager.

What You Share Online

Everything that you choose to share online can become a permanent part of your Internet history. Do you really have to list your birthday, address, phone number or your current location? Remember to always think before you post.

 Google

Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.

Cocoon:  A Simple & Free Solution

Our Privacy Policy is transparent and succinct. We feel that you will have a simpler, more intuitive web experience if control is placed in the hands of the user.

We feel that Google Inc. and other popular Internet companies have been allowed too much access to Internet users’ computers and personal data,” said Vernon Irvin, President and CEO of Virtual World Computing. “Last week, the FTC was asked to investigate Google for Safari cookies, and yesterday, Microsoft claimed Google is doing much the same thing with Internet Explorer. Facebook and many other sites are also tracking user data. Internet users should be informed that there are tools available, such as Cocoon, that give Internet consumers control of their private information.

Cocoon protects you from tracking cookies by Google, Facebook, and other online companies. Cocoon software prevents Internet users from directly touching a more privacy invasive Internet. Consumers’ online privacy is protected because websites and advertisers only see Cocoon’s Digital Protection Cloud(tm), hiding unique IP address and preventing online activity from being tracked by cookies. Unlike traditional anti-virus software, Cocoon prevents malicious software and virus downloads by instantly scanning files for viruses before they reach the computer. Additionally, Cocoon offers disposable email addresses, protecting personal email boxes from spam and phishing attacks.

Take control of your privacy online and download Cocoon today! (Currently available for Firefox and Internet Explorer).

According to Byron Acohido from USA Today, Facebook has been able to create a running log of visits that each of its 800 million members has visited in the previous 90 days. Once you are logged into Facebook, the site inserts a both a browser cookie and a session cookie into your web browser.

“Online tracking involves technologies that tech companies and ad networks have used for more than a decade to help advertisers deliver more relevant ads to each viewer. Until now, Facebook, which makes most of its profits from advertising, has been ambiguous in public statements about the extent to which it collects tracking data.”

In a nutshell: If you are logged into your Facebook account and also surfing the web, it is your session cookie that will log any third-party web pages that you visit. This session cookie works in conjunction with any Facebook plug-in (such as the “Like” button) that is installed at the third-party site and reports back to the FACEBOOKSHIP:  the web address of the page you visited along with pc and browser data including your IP address.

To get out the full scoop on how Facebook tracks you across the web, be sure to visit USA Today and view their flash presentation on how this process works once you are logged in, logged out and how Facebook currently uses this tracking technology.

Stanford grad student, Johnathan R. Mayer shared a report last month that revealed how web sites share your information with ad networks proving that online tracking is not anonymous.

Sadly most people have no idea how little privacy they have online.

“…not only do many popular web sites wring as much personally identifiable information as possible out of its own users, they funnel that data to other web sites, spreading news of one user’s browsing habits to as many as 22 companies with every visit to a particular site.” –Kevin Fogarty | IT World

In today’s online world, privacy is not a right that exists, it is an option that you must exercise on your own. Just the fact you are reading this means you are more aware of privacy issues than the vast majority of people. Please share your knowledge with others and we hope this video helps.

The Cocoon Team!

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!.

When using a service or product from a company that deals with Internet security and privacy it is important that the resource be credible, competent and trustworthy. Terms of Service (TOS) and the site Privacy Policy should be easy to read and transparent. There should be no guess work in a privacy policy and that is why we take great pride in providing a very short and succinct Privacy Policy.

The core business model of Virtual World Computing (VWC) is built on ensuring the highest levels of privacy and security and protection. The company’s flagship product -  Cocoon   provides consumers with a better way to browse with greater privacy protection, computer security and browsing convenience. Cocoon puts the user in control of the Internet experience by ensuring that their computer and personal information are protected from malicious attacks, unwanted spam or phishing, cookie tracking and many other invasions of privacy. [Source]

The people behind Cocoon

Jeff Bermant, Founder & CEO: Jeff had the simple yet powerful idea of protecting his privacy and his computer by accessing the Internet through a browser running on a remote PC. The seed of that idea grew into Virtual World Computing and the Cocoon™ service. Jeff is an entrepreneur by nature.

Brian J. Fox, Founder & CTO: Brian was employee #1 of the Free Software Foundation GNU, and wrote the BASH shell that runs on virtually every Mac and Linux machine out there.

Marvin Minsky, Advisory Board: Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and Professor of EECS, MIT. A pioneer of artificial intelligence (AI) and one of the most important cognitive scientists of the century. Marvin pioneered advances in mathematics, computational linguistics, optics, robotics and telepresence. He built SNARC, (Stochastic Neural Analog Reinforcement Calculator), the first neural network simulator, and founded MIT’s AI Lab.

We believe the key problem with both security and privacy online is the accessibility current browsers allow to your computer. Wether it’s cookies or executable code you should have control over what has access to your hard drive. The traditional anti-virus solution of dealing with viruses after after they’ve reached your computer is wrong. We want to stop them from ever getting at your data. So, the core concept behind Cocoon is to keep the Net at arms distance from your hard drive and your computer.

Our business is to protect your privacy and security – if we don’t do that we don’t have a business – so we take Internet security and privacy seriously.

As you casually drift around the Internet from one website to another, do you ever wonder about the “Facebook Like Button?” It is ubiquitous and so ingrained in the social web that it has now become part of the norm. Many people may not be aware that you do not have to click on the “Like Button” to be Facebook-tracked.

Your browsing habits are linked to your Facebook profile which generally includes Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as your first and last name. When you visit a site with a “Like” button present, Facebook will already know how you are interacting with that particular site and you do not have to click on the “Like” button to have this information disclosed to Facebook. As long as you are logged into your Facebook account, Facebook can track you as you travel around the Internet and there are millions of site pages that host this button that can send your browsing habits back to the mothership.

Christopher Mims of Technology Review stated last week: “Those Like buttons have the potential to be, essentially, a window on the browser history of every Facebook user on the planet—all 700 million of them.”

Amir Efrati of The Wall Street Journal further elaborates:

The widgets, which were created to make it easy to share content with friends and to help websites attract visitors, are a potentially powerful way to track Internet users. They could link users’ browsing habits to their social-networking profile, which often contains their name.

For example, Facebook or Twitter know when one of their members reads an article about filing for bankruptcy on MSNBC.com or goes to a blog about depression called Fighting the Darkness, even if the user doesn’t click the “Like” or “Tweet” buttons on those sites.

Facebook does not only include “generalized” data. People provide real names, real addresses, real phone numbers, real photos and real birth dates. They have conversations with real friends and real family. Facebook is perhaps the biggest treasure trove of PII data on the Internet today.

From Facebook’s Privacy Policy:

Whenever you connect with a Platform application or website, we will receive information from them, including information about actions you take. In some cases, in order to personalize the process of connecting, we may receive a limited amount of information even before you connect with the application or website.

There are ways that you can stop Facebook tracking in its tracks. If you log out of Facebook prior to going to other sites you will not be tracked. If you prefer convenience over having to reenter your password each time you return to Facebook, Cocoon has a simple solution – we give you the option to block Facebook tracking.

You can find out more about Cocoon at GetCocoon.com

Stop by and say hello on Twitter and Facebook too – The Cocoon Team!

According to Arnold Roosendaal, a Doctorial Candidate and Researcher at Tilburg Law School Facebook tracks and traces everyone. Roosendaal says it does not matter if you have a Facebook account or if you do not have a Facebook account, if you visit any site that has a “Like” button and have a Facebook account, you are being tracked by Facebook. If you visit any site that has “Facebook connect” and do not have a Facebook account, you are now being tracked by Facebook. You can download Roosendaal’s research paper here.

More on Roosendaal’s Research:

When a Facebook account is created the user is issued a cookie with a unique user ID. If this user were to use another computer to login to Facebook, a temporary cookie would be issued. Once the user logs in from this other device the temporary cookie would be replaced with a cookie that has the unique user ID. If the user were to login from a Smartphone, a public computer or a friends computer, there could be many devices associated with this unique user ID.

“Since data about the user are sent to Facebook regardless of whether the Like button is actually clicked upon, users are often not aware of this fact. Nevertheless, the cookie contains the unique user ID and therewith facilitates the information on browsing behavior to be connected to the account. Even though the user is not involved, Facebook can collect far more individual data then the data made available on the profile page only.”

Non-Facebook users do not have a cookie set or unique user ID when they visit a site that only has the “Like” button. But, if the non-Facebook user visits a site that has “Facebook connect” the application will issue a cookie to the non-Facebook user. From this moment onward, visits by the non-Facebook user to any site that feature a “Like” button “result in a request for the Like button from the Facebook server including the cookie.”

“Based on the cookie, the entire web behavior of an individual user can be followed. Every site that includes some kind of Facebook content will initiate an interaction with the Facebook servers, therewith disclosing information about the visited web site together with the cookie.”

At Cocoon we provide a simple solution for Facebook tracking.  You don’t need it. You don’t want it. We give you the option to block it!

Be sure to check out our Facebook note: Is there “Privacy Failure” in “Facebook Connect?

Stay tuned for Part Six (soon) of Get the W-Rap on Cocoon. If you don’t want to miss the latest news please subscribe to our RSS feed.