Leo great job. Love your articles, and read them when I receive them. I'm not a novice so appreciate your candid solutions or suggestions.
futher more I save them so I can go back when needed.
I'm a senior in a senior and dissabled building and contantly doing my voluntering helping others with their computers.
Keep them coming, and great job.
Roland
Posted by: Roland at June 2, 2009 8:20 AM
Leo,
Great article! I own a medium size ecommerce company (www.tylertool.com) and your dead on. At best I can see which people used google, yahoo or MSN versus came directly to my site by typing the url. Without the cookie that tells me it comes from google I would have no idea how much money i should invest in paid advertising. Without this i don't know my return on ad dollars spent.
Amazon and the bigger companies may have elaborate data mining resources but the smaller companies really don't!
Posted by: Tom at June 2, 2009 8:48 AM
I really enjoy your articles,they are very informative. I have often wondered how companies track my information or how I use my online operations.Thanks
Posted by: Al at June 2, 2009 9:03 AM
Firefox has an add-on to delete Flash cookies! And for the truly paranoid, don't forget the index.dat files!
Posted by: sirpaul1 at June 2, 2009 9:09 AM
What about the MAC on the NIC card/device? All MAC addresses are unique in this world. Couldn't that be used to "know you" even if you had cookies turned off completey?
Not normally, no. MAC's actually aren't always unique (even though they're supposed to be), and they don't travel past the first router your computer is connected to. (I supposed Javascript or other tools could read it and send it along some other way.)
Leo, sorry to contradict you (in terms), but although everything you said was true, there are scores of studies showing that with modern data mining techniques, one *can* trace individual information using aggregate data. Data mining is a technology that is so advanced now that it escapes comprehension to even most seasoned IT professionals.
Now, it is true that most corporations aren't interested in particular individuals. But a particularly aggressive mass-mailer might, totalitarian governments (or branches thereof) might - remember the Internet is worldwide, it's not only used in the U.S., and even there your government's record of late is not exactly flawless in that respect... And identity theft gangs might be VERY, VERY interested in that. Remember they are huge now, extremely rich and well-organized, and difficult to trace and frame because they are internationally based and spread through many countries and continents. The world has no borders, and if Big Brother isn't (yet) watching you, someone else might be...
Posted by: UrsoBR at June 2, 2009 1:26 PM
@Tom: It's actually not a cookie that tells you where people came from when they visit your site; it's a 'referer' record. This record is always present in a request for a web page, unless the user has gone to great lengths to disable it.
So even in a cookie-free world you would still get those stats you need.
Posted by: Ben D. at June 3, 2009 8:44 PM
Not being tracked huh? Well how about this? I go to a website and then a pop up window of a sexy girl comes up and says that she is available. She is in the same town as me or there are some that are 25 miles from me. Ok, I clear out my Internet cookies via CCleaner and restart my computer. All my history is cleared as well. I go back to the same website and again sexy girls in my particular area are showing up. My area not anything over 25 or 50 miles but only my area. How can this be?
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Leo great job. Love your articles, and read them when I receive them. I'm not a novice so appreciate your candid solutions or suggestions.
Posted by: Roland at June 2, 2009 8:20 AMfuther more I save them so I can go back when needed.
I'm a senior in a senior and dissabled building and contantly doing my voluntering helping others with their computers.
Keep them coming, and great job.
Roland
Leo,
Posted by: Tom at June 2, 2009 8:48 AMGreat article! I own a medium size ecommerce company (www.tylertool.com) and your dead on. At best I can see which people used google, yahoo or MSN versus came directly to my site by typing the url. Without the cookie that tells me it comes from google I would have no idea how much money i should invest in paid advertising. Without this i don't know my return on ad dollars spent.
Amazon and the bigger companies may have elaborate data mining resources but the smaller companies really don't!
I really enjoy your articles,they are very informative. I have often wondered how companies track my information or how I use my online operations.Thanks
Posted by: Al at June 2, 2009 9:03 AMFirefox has an add-on to delete Flash cookies! And for the truly paranoid, don't forget the index.dat files!
Posted by: sirpaul1 at June 2, 2009 9:09 AMWhat about the MAC on the NIC card/device? All MAC addresses are unique in this world. Couldn't that be used to "know you" even if you had cookies turned off completey?
02-Jun-2009
@Suzy: Leo has an article clearing it up: http://ask-leo.com/can_a_mac_address_be_traced.html
Posted by: Mike at June 2, 2009 10:12 AMLeo, sorry to contradict you (in terms), but although everything you said was true, there are scores of studies showing that with modern data mining techniques, one *can* trace individual information using aggregate data. Data mining is a technology that is so advanced now that it escapes comprehension to even most seasoned IT professionals.
Now, it is true that most corporations aren't interested in particular individuals. But a particularly aggressive mass-mailer might, totalitarian governments (or branches thereof) might - remember the Internet is worldwide, it's not only used in the U.S., and even there your government's record of late is not exactly flawless in that respect... And identity theft gangs might be VERY, VERY interested in that. Remember they are huge now, extremely rich and well-organized, and difficult to trace and frame because they are internationally based and spread through many countries and continents. The world has no borders, and if Big Brother isn't (yet) watching you, someone else might be...
Posted by: UrsoBR at June 2, 2009 1:26 PM@Tom: It's actually not a cookie that tells you where people came from when they visit your site; it's a 'referer' record. This record is always present in a request for a web page, unless the user has gone to great lengths to disable it.
So even in a cookie-free world you would still get those stats you need.
Posted by: Ben D. at June 3, 2009 8:44 PMNot being tracked huh? Well how about this? I go to a website and then a pop up window of a sexy girl comes up and says that she is available. She is in the same town as me or there are some that are 25 miles from me. Ok, I clear out my Internet cookies via CCleaner and restart my computer. All my history is cleared as well. I go back to the same website and again sexy girls in my particular area are showing up. My area not anything over 25 or 50 miles but only my area. How can this be?
12-Jun-2009
@Jon B: Geotargeting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo_targeting
Posted by: Jim at June 14, 2009 6:47 AMTo post a comment on "Just how do websites track or monitor our activity?", please return to that article's main page.