begin oe_protect.scr
Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> __/ [ Ian Semmel ] on Tuesday 26 December 2006 23:10 \__
>
>> On Tue, 26 Dec 2006 19:24:49 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>
>>> Microsoft in push for targeted online ads - WSJ
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | The company has begun combining personal data from the 263 million users
>>> | of its free Hotmail email service with information gained from
>>> | monitoring their searches, the paper said.
>>> `----
>>>
>>>
> http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-12-26T110332Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-281442-1.xml
>>> http://tinyurl.com/yac6mh
>>>
>>> As I said months ago, IE7 is spyware. A lot of Microsoft's software is
>>> used to collect data about the user. The company has history of handing in
>>> data to the US government (recently under no pressure from the DoJ).
>>>
>>>
>>> Also see:
>>>
>>> Microsoft In Talks To Buy Claria
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | For the last two weeks, Microsoft has been in talks to buy Claria, an
>>> | adware marketer formerly called Gator, and best known for its pop-upa
>>> | ds and software that tracks people visiting Web sites.
>>> `----
>>
>> Back in the early 1970's, I did a few jobs for Readers Digest which
>> involved building profiles on people based on what ads and direct mailings
>> they had responded to. This information was used to determine what future
>> mailings and offers would be sent to them.
>>
>> This tecnique is not new and is used by thousands of companies.
>
> Very true. A lot of companies exchange (sell) our data, whether legally or
> not. When done at this scale (computers make this possible), it's quite the
> Orwellian vision becoming a reality. The point to make here is that vendors
> are interested in using personal data in ways that benefit /them/, sometimes
> at our own expense. Even search engine results are intended to be refined in
> this way, based on a statement made by Microsoft earlier this year. Still
> open for abuse...
Except that it's completely different. In the 1970s, computerised data
collection was a rare thing indeed. Anything the Reader's Digest was
doing was absolutely standard market research based on information
people had sent to them. This is so completely different to what
Microsoft are doing it's amazing; Microsoft are using the personal,
private mail accounts of customers in order to make profiles of them.
This kind of action is almost certainly illegal in the EU, but don't
forget that the US has very weak data protection laws, and Oz seems to
be kowtowing to the US in all kinds of things at the moment.
Be very very suspicious of HMG allowing the US to be used as a "safe
port" for British Citizen's data - it's not a safe port for such data,
and has laws which are so weak as to permit almost any kind of abuse by
any company.
>
> I also saw the following article earlier today:
>
> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=avL4PSqZrcj4
>
> "`People are shocked when they hear the cameras talk, but when they see
> everyone else looking at them, they feel a twinge of conscience and comply,'
> said Mike Clark, a spokesman for Middlesbrough Council who recounted the
> incident. The city has placed speakers in its cameras, allowing operators to
> chastise miscreants who drop coffee cups, ride bicycles too fast or fight
> outside bars."
>
This is a different issue, although a very disturbing one in itself. I
sincerely hope that the collected data is disposed of in short order,
but I wonder if it is.
On a similar note, though the amount of low-level dirtiness around has
really blossomed over the last 15 years. When I get onto trains into
London now, I'd say that about 50% of under-30s will put their shod
feed, soles down, onto opposing seats, nicely wiping all the dog-sh1t,
mud and other cr*p they've collected whilst walking around for the next
person to sit down on; this behaviour is particularly prevalent amongst
females, so it must be seen as "girlie behaviour" at the moment. Same
goes for dropping litter and such like. I was parked behind a car at a
garage recently, whilst the occupants of the car were emptying rubbish
into a bin - very fine. Until the driver leaned out and threw something
/under/ the car, because he was too fscking lazy to get out and put it
in the bin. Dirty b*stard. He saw me watching, and didn't do it any
more.
The reason I mention this is that if people didn't go about behaving in
this way in the first place, the local councils would have far less
excuse to put in all this surveillance capability. One has to consider
that people get the environment they deserve, sometimes.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
"Elvis is my copilot."
-- Cal Keegan
|
|
