tracking cookies

18 Stories

Google Delays Plan to Block Cookies
Google Delays
Plan to Ditch Cookies
Jun 24, 2021 12:15 PM CDT

Google Delays Plan to Ditch Cookies

Removal of third-party trackers from Chrome pushed back to 2023

(Newser) - Google is delaying by nearly two years a plan to remove web-tracking cookies from the world's most extensively used web browser. The plan was for Google's Chrome web browser to stop supporting third-party cookies, which track a user's web-browsing habits, by January 2022. But on Thursday, Alphabet...

Not Just Online: 'Physical Cookie' Tracks Real-Life Shoppers

Makers aim to save brick-and-mortar stores

(Newser) - Tired of store ads aimed at just anyone? Wish you could be tracked at the mall the way you're tracked online? Well, you're in luck: "Physical Cookies" are now a thing. The pocket-sized gadgets determine which stores shoppers are walking into, allowing electronic signs to offer targeted...

Verizon Phones Raise New Privacy Fears

Company 'supercookies' can't be deleted

(Newser) - Verizon phones can apparently track you, even if you try to stop them. This month a Stanford University lawyer confirmed on his blog what cybersecurity experts have warned for a while : You can delete cookies on Verizon phones, but the company's so-called "supercookies" remain, allowing advertisers to target...

NSA Tracking Tool: Google Cookies

Spies exploited advertising tools

(Newser) - The latest revelations about NSA snooping will probably have some online privacy advocates itching to say "I told you so." The agency has "piggybacked" on the tools that advertisers use to track consumers, using cookies to single out targets for hacking, reports the Washington Post . A Google-specific...

Google Working on Real-Life Tracking: Report

It'll keep tabs on you, and sell data to advertisers

(Newser) - What if tracking cookies didn't just track your web activity—they tracked your every movement and reported it back to advertisers? A program Google is beta-testing does just that, ad industry sources tell Digiday . The program would track consumers' smartphone GPS data even if they didn't have any...

What Cookies? Google, Microsoft Plot New Ways to Track You

Systems could mean big gains for tech firms

(Newser) - The Internet's biggest players are taking a bite out of cookies. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are all working on ways to track users on their own, without the help of the small data chunks that reveal online activity, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company that wins what one...

Your iPhone Is Secretly Tracking You, Again

Advertisers getting data, though this time, at least, it's anonymous

(Newser) - There's an iOS6 feature you probably haven't heard of that's making some people very happy. Unfortunately, those people are advertisers. The new iPhone OS comes with a new tracking system that clues advertisers in on how you're using the phone, Business Insider reports. Tracking is turned...

FTC Tightening Web Privacy Rules for Kids

Biggest revamp in decade requires more consent from parents

(Newser) - A lot has changed online since 1998, when the FTC set up a privacy protection law for children online—and the federal organization believes it's time for an update. New rules expected within weeks would require companies to get parental consent for a wider range of data collection on...

Google Whacked With Record $22.5M Privacy Fine

Firm used loophole to get past Safari privacy controls

(Newser) - Tracking Internet users who had a "do not track" privacy setting switched on has cost Google $22.5 million. The fine, the largest the Federal Trade Commission has ever levied against a company, came after investigators found that the search firm had bypassed privacy settings in Apple's Safari...

Facebook Tracks You Even After You Log Off: Lawsuit

Two attorneys file class-action suit over tracking cookies

(Newser) - Facebook is facing a class-action lawsuit over claims that it violated privacy laws by continuing to track users even after they logged off the site. The suit was filed by two renowned Baltimore attorneys on behalf of plaintiffs Laura Maguire and Christopher Simon, the Daily Record reports. The attorneys accuse...

How Facebook Watches You
 How Facebook Watches You 
Nov 16, 2011 2:12 PM CST

How Facebook Watches You

Social media giant tracks your previous 90 days of browsing

(Newser) - Facebook is watching you—even if you’re not a Facebook user—but insists it’s less nefarious than rivals who do the same thing. The social networking giant uses tracking cookies to keep a running log of every page users have visited for the past 90 days, engineering director...

Hidden 'Supercookies' Stalk Users, Steal History

New techniques 'almost impossible' to detect

(Newser) - Privacy-conscious consumers have yet another thing to worry about in the ongoing battle over online security: supercookies. Unlike regular cookies that track a user's online activities, supercookies are much harder to locate and delete, and are able to reformulate a user profile even after that user deleted his regular...

Groupon Will Collect, Share More User Data, It Says in New Privacy Policy
  Groupon Is Watching You 
Jul 11, 2011 6:58 AM CDT

Groupon Is Watching You

Site will start collecting sharing more user data

(Newser) - Beware, bargain hunter: Groupon is looking over your shoulder. The daily deals site announced yesterday that it will collect and share more information about its users, in a move sure to attract the attention of federal regulators and privacy advocates. Also announced in the privacy policy changes: Groupon will market...

Online Trackers to Tell You What They Know About You

Service to let users edit their demographics, or opt out

(Newser) - Online tracking companies are banding together to create a service where Internet users can view information collected about them, the Wall Street Journal reports. Via the Open Data Partnership, consumers will be able to edit their interests and demographics as gathered by eight tracking companies like BlueKai and eXelate—and...

Online Ad Companies Know Everything About You

Tracking cookies are watching

(Newser) - The second you land on Capital One’s homepage, they know, or at least, could know, where you live, what you do, how much you make, and loads of other information about you. That’s because Capital One employs a company called [x+1] Inc, a firm that uses the tracking...

Microsoft Execs Thwarted IE Privacy Plans

Defaults were changed to allow tracking and help advertisers

(Newser) - Microsoft had planned to give Internet Explorer 8.0 the most advanced privacy settings in the industry, until executives swept in and made the browser more advertiser-friendly. Explorer was supposed to keep out all kinds of common tracking tools, but Microsoft opted instead to turn the feature off as a...

Your Computer Is Spying on You—a Lot
 Your Computer Is 
 Spying on You—a Lot 
investigation
Jul 31, 2010 11:28 AM CDT

Your Computer Is Spying on You—a Lot

It's now a booming Internet business

(Newser) - Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is right about this end-of-privacy business. A Wall Street Journal investigation (stories here and here ) makes clear that whatever you do online, you can rest assured that some advertiser somewhere knows about it. It's not that tracking cookies exist that's so troubling, it's that there's so ...

Shopping Sites Use Your Cookies to Vary Prices


 Shopping Sites Use Your 
 Cookies to Vary Prices 
FINE PRINT DEPT.
Feb 1, 2010 11:15 AM CST

Shopping Sites Use Your Cookies to Vary Prices

Cookies track location, habits to enable 'dynamic pricing'

(Newser) - One of the attractions of online shopping is that items have one price in the digital world. Or we think they do. In fact, stores on the Internet use those cute tracking cookies that remember your password to remember a lot more about you, including your physical location and shopping...

18 Stories